Why Did Europe Conquer the World?
Author(s): Philip T. Hoffman
Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe rise to the top, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? Why didn't these powers establish global dominance? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, distinguished economic historian Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional responses-such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution-fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if variables had been at all different, Europe would not have achieved critical military innovations, and another power could have become master of the world. In vivid detail, Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development and military rivalry. Compared to their counterparts in China, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East, European leaders-whether chiefs, lords, kings, emperors, or prime ministers-had radically different incentives, which drove them to make war. These incentives, which Hoffman explores using an economic model of political costs and financial resources, resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector from the Middle Ages on, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.
General Information
- :
- : Princeton University Press
- : Princeton University Press
- : 0.542
- : 01 July 2015
- : United States
- : 01 June 2015
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Philip T. Hoffman
- : Hardback
- : 909.08
- : 312
More About The Product
Philip T. Hoffman is the Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics and professor of history at the California Institute of Technology. His books include Growth in a Traditional Society (Princeton), Surviving Large Losses, and Priceless Markets.
Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 How the Tournament in Early Modern Europe Made Conquest Possible 19 Chapter 3 Why the Rest of Eurasia Fell Behind 67 Chapter 4 Ultimate Causes: Explaining the Difference between Western Europe and the Rest of Eurasia 104 Chapter 5 From the Gunpowder Technology to Private Expeditions 154 Chapter 6 Technological Change and Armed Peace in Nineteenth-Century Europe 179 Chapter 7 Conclusion: The Price of Conquest 205 Appendix A Model of War and Technical Change via Learning by Doing 215 Appendix B Using Prices to Measure Productivity Growth in the Military Sector 228 Appendix C Model of Political Learning 231 Appendix D Data for Tables 4.1 and 4.2 233 Appendix E Model of Armed Peace and Technical Change via Research 234 Acknowledgments 239 Bibliography 241 Index 263
