this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
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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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[–] theturtlemoves@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

India or China ... being large landmasses without much interruption by mountains.

Both India and China have one large plain covering about a quarter of the country, and a handful of smaller plains with about half the land covered by hills and mountains. Not that different from Europe.

China and India, with their vast floodplains, could both feed an astounding amount of people and remain more or less unified in a single political entity for extended periods of time

China was unified for most of its history. India was only politically unified by the British - historically there would be one large state somewhere in the central plain, and dozens of smaller states that may be under its economic and cultural hegemony, but otherwise independent.