Matthew Sherlock

2/9/2020

HIST 410, Jonathan Daly

Analytical essay: The Rise of the West

The rise of European powers to global supremacy is in many ways a sociological and

historical anomaly. Europe was not the richest or most populace place on the planet during its

ascendancy; the holder of that lofty title was the nations of South-east Asia, in particular china.

So why is it that so much of the world today speaks a language from an island off the coast of

France that is no larger than Alabama. Why did England and their continental brethren take this

world as their own and shape it into their own image. This historical question has been debated

since the powers in question had started to create the world that we live in today. The book

“The Rise of the West” by Jonathan Daly assembles the historical viewpoints from dozens of

sources from decades apart. The reasons given for why the west rose varies from the cultural,

to the institutional, to the geographic. This paper shall analyses the arguments that this author

feels hold the most water.

Before we talk about the book, this author will give his own opinion on how the west

rose. It is a series of interlocking events, conditions, and sheer luck that lead to the rise of the

west. Subscribing one origin point to the rise of European superpowers is somewhat silly and

can become rather ridiculous (the Nazi insistence on some super race descendants of Atlantis

immediately comes to mind). Geography, historical positioning, cultural shift, and political

competition created a perfect storm that engulfed the world. Though this is very likely how it
went, but it is a somewhat complicated and unsatisfying as a historical narrative. Let us then

look into the arguments of more experienced historians then this humble writer.

The impact of Europe’s military might are as good a place as any to start our little tour

of historical circumstance. Europe was for much of its existence considered a backwater

compared to the larger and better organized states in Asia (the various iterations of the Chinese

empire, the Islamic caliphates, etc.) it was not totally without reason, the roman empire was

long gone by the time of Columbus journey and there was no noble house in Europe that was in

anyway capable of being considered a peer of the Chinese imperial family. They were smaller in

size, their armies were either feudal, mercenary, or non-existent (remember that the discovery

of the American continent, the thing that debatably triggered the explosive expansion of

overseas colonialism, took place in 1492. Nearly two centuries before the thirty years war, a

conflict where a national professional army was experimental at best.) and they had poorly

managed cities that were little more than oversized collections of villages. What Europe had

above the other powers of their day, was an understanding of the value of innovation and

constant improvement. China, The Ottomans, and other powerful empires of the era were

unmatched in their respective spheres of influence. None of their neighbors had the sheer

amount of strength to threaten them in any significant way. The powers that could challenge

them often were thousands of miles apart (the Ottomans and the Qing were both powerful

nations, but they never clashed in the way that France and England did.) The geopolitics of

Western Europe were volatile by comparison. The great power of one decade could be the

punching bag of the next. The balance of power was perched on the edge of a razor, and it

wouldn’t take too much upset the balance in your favor. The ones with the best armor, the best
cannons, the best soldiers, tactics and guns were the ones that could succeed on the battlefield.

The ones that could rule the battlefield could dictate their will on their neighbors, and that was

a enviable position to be in. This near anarchic political situation lead to an arms race, armor

and weapons were constantly improved. Plate replaced mail, then plate was phased out when

guns became more accurate, those guns are then replaced when technology improves. As put

by Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker“…the intensity of competition among states that drove

each constantly to innovate and to imitate and build on its rival’s advances… 1” The Chinese had

invented the firearm, but they had no real need to improve or use them. Europeans by contrast

needed any advantage that they could get, so their military technology far outpaced their

military organization, so when they expanded into the wider world the tribes of the men fell to

them until they grew powerful enough that the ancient empires of the Qing and the Turk no

longer had the upper hand. So why was it that Europe didn’t create the kind of empires that

popped up in Asia, what quirk of geography made these nations possible.

Europe is not really a continent in the purest sense, it is a part of a larger whole. A

peninsula of a super continent, Eurasia. Europe is a place that is inundated with difficulties for

any would-be unifier. Rivers could be used to travel and trade 2, but they could also act as

barriers. There were several mountain ranges dividing Italy and Spain from the rest of their

neighbors (some even question whether Spain counts as European or north African). The

weather was hostile for much of the year. The harsh nature of Europe kept the nations that call

it home from being so powerful that they could stagnate into mediocrity, but not so bad that
1
Jonathan Daly (Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker), Historians Debate The Rise of the West
(Routledge, 2015), 39.
2
Jonathan Daly (David Cosandey), Historians Debate The Rise of the West (Routledge, 2015),
54.
they couldn’t think of anything besides surviving another day. For an example of how

geography can shape a culture, let’s take into account how it shaped England. Being an island,

they had to build a strong navy to defend themselves from their larger and more populace

neighbors (France, Germany, Spain, etc.) this in turn helped them with power projection in the

age of colonialism. Their ships could disrupt the mobility of their enemies, keep supplies and

reinforcements from reaching the colonies while ensuring that their own colonies remained

secure. Geography can count for a lot, bringing obstacles and advantages. Europe’s makes it a

kind of bottleneck for the various cultures and societies that live there, a bottle that was

constantly being shaken.

The “barbarian” migrations of the later roman empire is a good example of another

factor in the European dynamism3. The exchange of cultures and ways of doing things. The

Great Steppe of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, is constantly traversed by horse nomads who

bring what ever they could carry with them. Tech, Ideas, and warriors that create a further

wave of migrations when they displace the peoples already living there. Ethnic groups displaced

and replaced. Just using England as a sample, the Romans took control of the island and when

they abandoned it the native Britons took their place. The Britons then were conquered by the

Saxons, who then lost half their kingdoms to the Danes. The Normans then came to the isle and

took control from them both. In Asia the situation was more stable, and so they never bothered

to learn from each other. The Chinese had an empire that lasted thousands of years in various

forms, why should they bother learn anything from their neighbors when theirs was the

greatest civilization that ever was and ever would be. Europe’s powers were not as stable and

3
Jonathan Daly (Map 1.1), Historians Debate The Rise of the West (Routledge, 2015), 16.
nowhere as old. They could look around them and see the ruins of the ones that came before

(their ancestors may have even had a hand in creating those), the peoples of Europe (at the

beginning of their ascent anyway) knew they were not the best there was. They learned from

the Islamic world4 and evolved. Geography, political fracturing, and constant change are the

dominoes that were lined on the table of historical events, all it took was a push.

If the pieces were all in place for Europe’s rise to power was already laid, was the rise of

say the French empire and its European brethren inevitable? Of course not, when it comes to

human history nothing is certain. People have tried to use historical narrative to predict the

future for as long as the concept of historical narrative has been a part of academic discourse.

Fascism, Communism, and “the end of history” theory from the 1990’s all tried to use the past

and what they knew of the present to see what would be, and all proved to be profoundly

flawed some laughably flawed. No one can (or perhaps even should) be able to perfectly

predict the future, and the past is a place we only understand as a shadow and a story. How

and why are the eternal question, and they might never get an answer. That is ok, if we know

everything then we would become listless and dull. It is more fun seeking the truth then finding

it (sometimes anyway).

4
Jonathan Daly (Marshall Hodgeson), Historians Debate The Rise of the West (Routledge, 2015),
61