Nikolai S. Rozov wrote:
> Some days ago i've read a paper of
> one Russian orientalist Petrov who in the beginning of 1980th made a review
> of several hundreds publications (since XVIII) in Russia concerning
> transnational trade in the East and he maintains that all data say that the
> West overtook the East (in quantity, diversity, quality of goods) only up to
> 1830-50, not earlier.
<snip>
> at the same time wide and successful colonial expansion of Portugal, then
> Netherlands and England in the Indian Ocean bassein shows that at
> least in one aspect - navy (military technologies + efficient
> regular trans-ocean transportation) Europeans HAD advantages
>over Asians (Arabs, Indians and Turks) even in 16-18c.
If we can't grant Westerners any material superiority
in technology, economic development, etc, during the period
in which they rose to (short term) mastery if the planet,
we have to recognize the importance of immaterial factors,
I would think. God perhaps, or more likely superior amounts
of will, stamina, determination, zeal, "heart", pluck on the
part of Europeans, and sloth, laziness, inefficiency, corruption,
fatalism, etc. on the part of the non-European natives.
What qualities did Europeans themselves attribute their successes
to during the 1500-1850 AD period? Material or immaterial?
-- Mike Shupp Graduate Student Department of Anthropology California State University, Northridge ms44278@csun1.csun.edu http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/