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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:28
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Three things, working in tandem:
1) Natural barriers and challenges. Europe has two things here....rough seas (as has been pointed out), and cold. Cold makes you innovate if you want to survive, and parts of Europe are....damned cold. (or course, if this was the whole picture, then the eskimoes would be the most technoligically advanced folks in the world, so there's gotta be more).
2) Resource base - Civilizations need the basics to thrive. Food (in variety...grains, fruits, beef, etc), domesticatible animals (esp. horses and cattle), and other raw materials (lossa trees and ore and stone for construction). Other areas have some of these in combination, but the "total package" is right there in Europe.
3) Limited space/rapidly growing population - Leads to competition (as has been mentioned), but it also means faster transfer of knowledge between groups. There are no significant barriers to slow it down (ie- nothing like a vast desert, or a mountain range that isolates Europe into disparate halves, etc.
So....good resources, macro-level challenges, relatively confined area with a rapidly growing population and tons of resources to play with....it was nigh-on inevitable.
-=Vel=-
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:28
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I mean, yes, of course the regurgitation of Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel as done by a number of posters on this thread does have something to do with it... but materials and the way they are used are effected as well by the mindset and the beliefs/attitudes of those within a culture.
Let me quote Oxford don John Morris Roberts (emphasis mine (except the word in bold, that is from the original.)):
quote:
It is very hard to say exactly how such changes affected Europe's role in the coming era of world history. By 1500, there was certainly much to give confidence to the few Europeans who were likely to think at all about these things. The roots of their civilization lay in a religion which taught them they were a people voyaging in time, their eyes on a future made a little more comprehensible and perhaps a little less frightening by contemplation of past perils navigated and awareness of a common goal. As a result Europe was to be the first civilization aware of time not as endless (though perhaps cyclical) perssure, but as continuing change in a certain direction, as progress. The chosen people of the Bible, after all, were going somewhere; they were not simply people to whom inexplicable things happened which had to be passively endured. From the simple acceptance of change was before long to spring the will to live in change which was the peculiarity of modern man. Secularized and far away from their origins, such ideas could be very important; the advance of science soon provided an example. In another sense, too, the Christian heritage was decisive for, after the fall of Byzantium, Europeans believed that they alone possessed it (or in effect alone, for there was little sense among ordinary folk of what Slav, Nestorian, or Coptic Christianity might be). It was an encouraging idea for men who stood at the threshold of centuries of unfolding power, discovery and conquest. Even with the Ottomans to face, Europe in 1500 was no longer just the beleaguered fortress of the Dark Ages, but a stronghold from which men were beginning to sally back-and-forth in counter-attack. Jerusalem had been abandoned to the infidel, Byzantium had fallen. Where should be the new centre of the world?
The men of the Dark Ages who had somehow persevered in adversity and had built a Christian world from the debris of the past and the gifts of the babarians had thus wrought infinitely more than they could have known.
...
Perhaps the key to that (the Europeans') future with the past can be located in the fundamental Christian dualism of this life and the world to come, the earthly and the heavenly. This was to prove an irritant of great value, secularized in the end as a new critical instrument, the contrast of what is and what might be, of ideal and actual. In it, Christianity secreted an essence to be utilized against itself, for in the end it would make possible the independent critical stance, a complete break with the world Aquinas and Erasmus both knew.* |
And let's not forget the printing press and the 26-letter alphabet! 
*J.M. Roberts, History of the World, 1993 printing, Book 6, Chapter 11, pages 432-433.
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panag
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MY WORDS ARE BACKED WITH BIO-CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Oct 2000
time: 07:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
I want to keep this on the off topic forum, but most of us are civers here, and we all know that playing a european civ can limit your ability to grow, as quick as, say the American Indians or the Aboriginies even!
So what was it exactly that gave the Europeans the edge?
I'm asking this because I believe that the game Civilization needs to change dramatically in order to function better (and I also think that would be more fun too - this is for those "but real doesn't mean fun" type of ppl  ) |
hi ,
one of the great things that happend in europe is without doubt napi and his wars , .....
everywhere he went he left behind the "code de Napoleon" , till today the base of most european constitions and laws , .... he also brought schools , elections , tax , federal police , etc , .....
without him europe would definatly not be the same , they would be at least 50 years behind on the us , ...
have a nice day
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:28
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A comparison with civ, since the thread started by a comparison with civ. Europe is terrible to play in civ because of competition, while China, Aztecs, America, are far easier to play for lack of (aggressive) neighbours.
Thus, competition doesn't pay as much in civ as it did in history. If a civ survives competition, it should be stronger than an unchallenged civ.
In history, Europe could evolve different civs because there were barriers (mountains, gulfs, capes, islands...). They could sustain these civs because the climate was appropriate: The fertile crescent turned into (mostly) a desert because of its soil/climate, under which agriculture became self-destructive.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:28
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Thank ya, Snoop! As to the raw numbers, I would say that yes, that very much plays a part.
Look at France during the 1400-1600 period. Far and away the biggest population, and a great many innovations came out of it during that timeframe.
Not to say that numbers are everything, however. As has been stated, the industrialization of Europe took root first on the British Isle, and in Northern Europe (more sparsely populated than other areas).
Where numbers come into play though is in playing the "odds". If, on average, there's one genius in a million people, then the country with the biggest population gets dibs (statistically, at least) on the biggest number of geniuses, so numbers play a role, but IMO, it's one of the lesser factors. Much more compelling are the environments (ie - a tiny nation with a kicka$$ university will draw people from other countries to study there, and there, innovations will abound).
-=Vel=-
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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:28
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I've read various historians claim that the division in Europe between religious authority and secular political authority (though nowhere near total) was much greater than was typical in most other civilizations and that this made for an environment that was friendlier to innovation and change.
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Dr Strangelove
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Maybe we should consider reasons why other civilizations didn't initiate unrestrained expansion. China had the means to do so, but the ascendency of a self-satisfied Confuscian philosophy stymied trade and exploration. The Hindus might also have become an expansionist civilization, and in fact artifacts from Indonesia show that they had their day at one time. It appears that the Muslims gained control of the Indian Ocean, effectivley checking Indian expansion. Islam might also have continued its expansion. It can be argued that the hegemony of the Ottomans actually slowed Muslim expansion. The Ottomans eventually swallowed up the entire Islamic community west of Persia and north of the Sahara, but they don't appear to have encouraged innovation. The strong but eventually containable presence of powerful Islamic states to the south and southeast of Europe seems to have stimulated European growth, military, economic, and scientific.
At the beginning of the Renaissance I believe that there was a convergence of factors promoting western growth and expansion, among them being a rediscovery of the Roman love of organization, the rediscovery of the value of scholasticism, a relative degree of political stabilization ( in comparison to the turmoil inflicted by barbarian invasions over the previous 1000 years ), and stimulating competition not only among the fledgling European states, but also between Europe as a whole and the power of the Ottomans. I think it is significant that the majority of the early explorers, who initiated Europe's long sea-borne invasion of the world, were citizens of the mediterranean, thereby coming from nations whose livelihood of commerce was being threatened by powerful Islamic nations in the east.
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Cruddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Sn00py
I want to keep this on the off topic forum, but most of us are civers here, and we all know that playing a european civ can limit your ability to grow, as quick as, say the American Indians or the Aboriginies even!
So what was it exactly that gave the Europeans the edge?
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I'd say the Arabs and the Chinese.
The Chinese for inventing gunpowder and the Arabs for introducing it to Europe.
Mind you, credit the Greeks. A fairly simple alphabet probably helped a lot too. OK, few Greek characters were used by Western Europe - but they needed a model to improve in every case, I think.
EDIT: After some thought I believe the Arabs deserve a bit more credit... And maybe "Arabs" is the wrong word anyway.
First off, numbers. Arabic numerals are a world standard now.
Second, trade. Because they controlled a lot of the silk for so long, it gave Europe the desire to build up their own navies to get trade to the Far East.
Last edited by Cruddy on 15-06-2003 at 09:43
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14-06-2003 16:16
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