In this blog post, we examine how Europe leveraged its scientific, climatic, and geographical advantages to build powerful empires.
Empires contributed to the fusion of numerous small cultures into a few larger ones. Within empires, ideas, people, goods, and technologies spread more easily than in politically fragmented regions. The utility of information sharing, the ease of commercial activity, and the standardization of goods—all solidified by the formation of empires—greatly helped unite people. As a result, the imaginary system of the empire was maintained. Those who led empires did not stop at merely allowing this system to form. To facilitate governance, they deliberately disseminated ideas, institutions, customs, and norms, thereby further solidifying the imagined system that people had built. Recognized as the most common form of political organization in the world for 2,500 years, the empire has persisted into the modern era based on its ease and convenience. In modern times, empires have formed primarily in Europe. Until recently, European nations conquered other countries and turned them into colonies in order to dominate the world. Considering that Britain, in particular, owned so much territory across the globe that it was called the “Empire on which the sun never sets,” no one would dispute that Europe held hegemonic power as an empire. However, this raises a question: Why was it Europe, specifically, that was able to grow into an empire and conquer the entire world?
If European empires had exerted global influence from the very moment the concept of empire began to take shape, and if they had possessed greater power than other empires around the world, this question would be easy to answer. One could say, “Europe was able to conquer the world because it subdued other empires through economic and military superiority, built on the formidable power it held in the early stages of empire-building.” However, this answer is not very convincing. This is because the balance of power in the early stages of empire-building did not lie with Europe. In *Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind*, Yuval Noah Harari states:
“It was not until the late 15th century that significant military and political empires emerged in Europe. Even after the emergence of these empires, Europe was no match for the Asian powers, and the reason Europe was able to conquer the Americas was simply because the Asian powers had little interest in that region.”
As such, Europe did not wield significant influence as an empire. We can see that in 1775, Europe was merely a peripheral player, while Asia accounted for 80 percent of the global economy. So how on earth was Europe able to conquer the Americas and seize economic power and territory across the globe in just 200 years?
Yuval Noah Harari cites science and technology as the answer to this question. In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe, marking a turning point in human history. He argues that Europe overcame this disparity by embracing the mass production and rapid advancements in science and technology brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Harari explains that China’s failure to adopt science and technology stemmed from differences in social structure and societal perceptions. He states that while Europe had already developed scientific and capitalist ways of thinking and behaving before gaining a technological advantage, China and other regions did not. However, there are several shortcomings to this argument. First, these habits have not been objectively or scientifically proven. It is unreasonable to claim that a habit of scientific thinking exists based solely on social structural factors. Furthermore, the lack of specific details regarding what constitutes a “habit of scientific thinking” weakens the argument’s persuasiveness. Even if we assume Harari’s claim to be true, a problem arises. People had already achieved progress through scientific discoveries even before the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. According to Harari’s view, it is impossible to explain why China led the way in pre-Industrial Revolution development. Inventions that changed history—such as paper, gunpowder, and the stirrup—were all made in Asian countries, and Europe made relentless efforts through trade to import these technologies. If Europeans had possessed a habit of scientific thinking, they should have been more advanced than Asian countries in these areas even before the Industrial Revolution. However, this was not the case; on the contrary, they possessed technology that was inferior to that of Asian nations. In other words, we can infer that there were other reasons besides the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s that allowed Europe to expand its empire.
In addition to the Scientific Revolution presented in *Sapiens*, there are two further reasons behind Europe’s ability to spread its imperial hegemony across the globe.
The first is climatic and geographical influence. Due to climatic factors, empires were able to spread rapidly from east to west. On Earth, moving northward from the equator, tropical, temperate, and cold climates are distributed. Due to the Earth’s exposure to sunlight, similar climate zones generally exist along latitudinal lines. As a result of these similar climate zones extending horizontally, the crops that people relied on as staples could spread much more easily in that direction. Jared Diamond, author of *Guns, Germs, and Steel*, put it this way:
“Since organisms and cultures evolve to suit the climate and natural environment of a particular region, movement within a climate zone is easy, but movement between climate zones is much more difficult.”
The movement of crops within similar climates ultimately led to the spread of staple crops, which in turn fostered cultural uniformity in dietary habits. Building on this cultural uniformity, empires were able to rapidly conquer the Eurasian continent and other continents. Even with this cultural uniformity, the reason Europeans were able to surpass the Chinese lay in the difference in their staple crops. The Chinese, living on the eastern part of the continent, ate rice as their staple food in a humid climate. Since rice can only grow in regions with heavy rainfall, it was difficult for it to spread westward to drier regions such as Europe and Africa. In contrast, wheat and potatoes—which Europeans relied on as staples—had fewer climatic constraints compared to rice. Wheat and potatoes could be cultivated even with low rainfall, allowing them to spread to various regions.
Geographical factors also played a role in Europe overtaking China. Even if crops could spread due to climatic conditions, imperial expansion would inevitably be slow if advancing into new regions proved difficult. China, located on the eastern side of the Eurasian continent, was unable to expand further eastward due to the vast Pacific Ocean. The presence of deserts in the central and western regions prevented staple crops from spreading, which likely contributed to the relatively slow pace of expansion. In contrast, Europe had favorable conditions for expansion eastward into similar climatic zones. Although the Atlantic Ocean lay to the west, its narrow width allowed for the expansion of the empire alongside the spread of crops following the discovery of the Americas. Furthermore, unlike China, which was landlocked and had no neighboring continents, Europe had the environmental conditions necessary for expansion. In other words, it was not only the advancement of science and technology but also the fortuitous geographical advantages that helped Europe dominate the world.
Even when considering scientific and technological advancements, climate, and geographical conditions, the process by which Europe conquered the New World was accomplished in an incredibly short period of time. Another factor also played a role in the expansion of European empires into the Americas: pathogens. It was living organisms, rather than economic or scientific factors, that contributed to the growth of these empires. As Europeans domesticated livestock, they naturally had frequent contact with animals.
In the process, they were exposed to diseases carried by these animals and developed immunity. However, the people of the Americas were not so fortunate. Until the Europeans arrived, they had never come into contact with livestock and had no opportunity to build up immunity. It was not science and technology, nor geographical or climatic conditions, but pathogens that led to the Europeans’ massacre of the indigenous peoples upon their arrival in the Americas. Jared Diamond put it this way:
“Among the Native Americans who lost their lives after Europeans set foot on the American continent, far more died from diseases caused by pathogens brought from Europe than from deaths on the battlefield. In the 100 to 200 years following Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World, the total Native American population declined by as much as 95% due to diseases introduced from Europe.”
In the blink of an eye, 95% of the indigenous population perished from European diseases such as smallpox, measles, malaria, and tuberculosis. It was easy for Europeans to occupy regions that had been emptied of people. These pathogens unintentionally contributed to the European empires’ conquest of the Americas and other regions.
It is unfounded to claim that Europe’s ability to form empires that dominated the world as a major power was made possible solely by the advancement of scientific knowledge. It is clear that the formation of empires was influenced not only by technological prowess but also by factors that seem entirely unrelated (such as geography and disease). From this perspective, the driving forces behind imperial growth presented in *Sapiens* are logically quite deficient. As seen in the examples of imperial growth discussed in this essay, there is never a single cause for any event in history. History is shaped by the interplay of multiple factors, some of which we may never have anticipated. Of course, it may be impossible to predict all these factors when interpreting history. However, what we must guard against is interpreting history based solely on isolated aspects. To explain history fully and accurately, we must include sufficient analysis of economic, scientific, and environmental factors.
