What Causes the Differences in Wealth Across the World

How did some people come to have a technological advantage over others? Why did Europe come to dominate the world after the 1400s? The answer to both of these questions can be answered in two simple words: geographic determinism. This means that if we could travel back in time to the era when hunters and gatherers populated the whole world and examine the globe, we would be able to predict eventual European dominance. Europe was destined to emerge a leader because of all the land selections on the earth; Europe has the most well suited location in comparison to its surroundings. It is on the Eurasia continent, it has rich areas for cultivation, and its geography is broken into peninsulas. These three things are, respectively, the determination of geographical power. The rest of this paper will examine why.

Eurasia is the only continent on the planet with an east west axis. An east west axis lies on a latitudinal line. Places with equal latitudes are mostly similar in climate. By having a consistent climate crops and livestock can thrive for the thousands and thousands of miles that make up Eurasia. Not only is the climate similar throughout the continent, but Asia (which makes up the large majority of Eurasia) is mostly flat. These two factors give Eurasia a huge advantage over the rest of the world in that domesticated crops can be shared and improved upon with relative ease. Once crops are being shared, it follows easily for livestock, culture, technology, and innovative ideas to be spread also. This way the people of Eurasia are constantly improving on ideas and passing them on. When contrasted with civilizations that are in continents with vertical axes, Eurasia has the advantage. A civilization in somewhere like Africa might take a thousand years to improve produce, while those in Eurasia can share tiny accomplishments and make the same improvement in a fraction of the time.

What good does the ability to spread crops do without an ample place to grow them? Nothing. This is why the great Eurasian civilizations had supple agricultural areas. However, this criterion only isolates Europe, the Fertile Crescent, India, and China; but doesn't select the firm winner that we know to be Europe. The Fertile Crescent is easy to discredit. It was the world's only heavy farming metropolis for many years. Over the years as more and more crops were grown, the forests were cut down for more fields and the fields were overused until they became barren. Thus it became a desert barely able to support its population let alone dominate the entire world. Another challenger, India, fails because although it is technically in Eurasia, it is surrounded on two sides by water and on a third side it is separated from the continent of Eurasia by one of the highest mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas. Its separation made the diffusion of ideas, technology, and crops much slower.

The area that competes with European dominance the most is China. It is on the essential landmass of Eurasia and it contains large, consistently fertile regions with which to support its large population. The problem is its coast. The coast is very smooth which provides an easy way of unification. The problem with unification is that it promotes a one minded, defeatist attitude that puts a cap on ingenuity on earth only the most current civilization can dominate. In contrast, Europe's many peninsulas have helped stop Europe from ever being completely unified. Without unification, a give and take of ideas happens sort of like the exchange throughout the continent of Eurasia, albeit at a smaller level. Through the give and take Europe can come out more advanced than China.

A huge dilemma in looking at history with the preconceived notion of geographic determinism is the tendency to manipulate the globe to fit whichever civilization is dominant at the time. This essay is written about the world as it was in 1500 CE because since that date globalism has changed the world to the extent where geographical explanations are neither practical nor relevant. A concern is that if geographical determinism was to be attempted while China was a world superpower equally convincing geographical reasons could be found to justify China's supremacy. However, as Europe is the world's last superpower before the advent of globalism it is politically more advanced than China and therefore very possibly geographically more advanced than China.

Bibliography

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.