Why the West Won

This text summarises a section of Jared Diamond's amazing and profound book, Guns, Germs and Steel.

Historically, Western Europe has over-run Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Oceania. It has done so through conquest, colonialism, theft of land and resources, enslavement and plague. In particular, Britain, France, Spain and Portugal have carved up most of the world. With a handful of exceptions, the lands outside Europe have been colonised by a European power at some stage.

Why did this happen? The proximate explanation is that Western countries had superior technology and more advanced economies, making conquest of other civilisations relatively easy. While this is true, it begs the further question of why Western Europe and not some other part of the world achieved such supremacy.

Jared Diamond starts by explaining why the Fertile Crescent and Chinese civilisations were the first to develop agriculture. The reasons were mostly the availability of domesticable plants and animals. He also explains that the east-west axis of the Eurasian landmass fostered the spread of crops and ideas, giving an important advantage compared to the north-south axes of the Americas and Africa. Diamond flatly rejects any notions of racial superiority: "The striking differences between the long-term histories of peoples of the different continents have been due not to innate differences in the peoples themselves but to differences in their environments."

That leaves the interesting question of why western Europe ended up dominating the world, instead of the civilisations of the Fertile Crescent, China or India, which had a head start of thousands of years. This seems particularly strange when we note that as late as the 15th century, Western Europe was still a backward corner of Eurasia.

As for the Fertile Crescent, this was a case of an ecological disaster. Much of this part of the world is now desert, and the land suffers from salinity and erosion. Humans have over-exploited the land, causing erosion. Irrigation caused salinisation. The forests were almost eliminated and there was insufficient rain for vegetation to recover. By contrast, Europeans live in a more robust environment, with more rain and hence do not have the same problems.

In effect, Europe received its agriculture, cattle raising, technology and writing from the Fertile Crescent, which eliminated itself as a centre of power and innovation.

China was in the forefront of technology in the world of the 15th century. The Chinese had developed cast iron, the compass, gunpowder, printing, paper, porcelain and many other inventions. China was then the greatest political and naval power in the world. Apparently, it lost its primacy for political reasons. A faction at the imperial court triumphed over its rivals and decided to terminate all maritime activity.

The great difference between China and Europe was that while China was united, Europe was ever disunited. That decision at the Chinese court put an end to Chinese navigation permanently. In Europe, the Genoese, Cristoffa Corombo, better known as Cristobal Colon, had asked various kings and nobles for men and ships, before ultimately succeeding on his fifth attempt, this at the Spanish Court. Paradoxically, the disunity of Europe was a kind of strength, compared to China's unity. Once the Spaniards began to colonise America, other European states saw the wealth flowing into Spain, and six more joined in colonising the newfound continents.

The same pattern was repeated with many other innovations in Europe: the cannon, electric illumination, the printing press and firearms. At first, there was a resistance to these innovations in various parts of Europe. However, after being adopted in one part of Europe each was propagated to other parts due to competitive forces. Europe's geographical and cultural barriers were sufficient to prevent political unification, but insufficient to halt the spread of technology and ideas.