History

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Why did Colonialism happen? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 month ago by Redbolshevik2@hexbear.net to c/history@hexbear.net

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China and India were the most important places on Earth for almost all of history. The "Near East," the "Far East," Africa, and the Americas all had advanced empires at times, and most outstripped Europe technologically for most of history. The Ottomans famously made use of gunpowder before Europeans, but the Chinese were (of course) the first to weaponize it.

So what enabled Europeans to so successfully dominate the world? Obviously it wasn't their exceptional genetics or superior "culture," or even, I think, the massive experience in organized murder from Europeans all killing each other. Was it Capitalism? Industrialization? Agriculture? Did the massive trade network encompassing half the globe create a population with a huge array of immune disease carriers?

Notably, the "Scramble for Africa" happened much later than the settling of the Americas. Did the wealth sucked out of the Americas allow the Europeans to do something that would've been previously impossible (or at least not worth the effort)?

I know this is kind of a massive question to answer and I'm sure it's very contested, but I'd appreciate any responses and any book recommendations.

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[–] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

My perception of this might be turbo fucked by Paradox game exposure but a large part of why Africa wasn't heavily exploited prior to America's colonization is because of malaria, which kind of kills a shitload of people and makes getting euro crackers to want to move there to work much more difficult and also makes it harder to have a stable workforce of natives to exploit since they still get sick too

Colonizing America first though resulted in Europeans acquiring the cinchona plant, which allowed for some primitive treatments in the 1600s, but quinine wasn't isolated until 1820

After that, though, according to google ai bullshit it was up to 95% effective at curing malaria, at least before any resistance developed

Before that, well, I've heard people estimate deaths as high as "half of all humans ever born to this day" from malaria, which is kind of a big number ngl