Why did Europe succeed globally over East Asia? In the 12th century, East Asia was a paragon of scientific discovery and economic growth, holding some of the greatest nations of the world at that time, and was technologically centuries ahead of Europe. Yet, Europe is responsible for the conquest and colonization of the Western Hemisphere and by the end of the 19th century was globally influential. Why is this? What happened to East Asia to cause this? First, what can we rule out as a non-significant factor in the west’s rise to power? One thing that does not factor into the rise of the west is population. The population of China has been larger than that of Europe for a long time. Another non-factor was access to natural resources. China and Europe both had effectively equal access to extremely similar natural resources throughout their respective developments. …show more content…
For European countries during the medieval period, it was an innovate or die environment. If countries in Europe didn’t invent and create, they would be at a great disadvantage on the battlefield and other fronts, and would be wiped out during one of the many wars that occurred during the time period. This innovation was aided by the conflicting interests of many rulers, exchanging power over relatively short periods of time. Country size also factored into competition; If you were a smaller country, you would have a harder time competing and growing. Thus, the larger you were, the better off you were. Essentially, the Europeans advanced and improved because they depended on that growth for