Additional Information. Philip T. Table of Contents. Cover Download Save contents. Title, Copyright pp. Contents pp. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Hoffman's answer: chronic military conflict that gave European leaders incentives to harness widely known gunpowder technologies more effectively than leaders in other parts of the world.
Also a good reminder of what economic history brings to today's economic and political table. It is a daunting task to attempt such an endeavor, let alone succeed as Hoffman has. Impressive and persuasive. Hoffman stresses how incentives made Europe's princes unusually bellicose and willing to promote improvements in war technology. Combining wide reading, the judicious use of data, and economic models that distinguish Hoffman's explanation from that of earlier historians, Why Did Europe Conquer the World?
Although Europe represents only about 8 percent of the planet's landmass, from to , Europeans conquered or colonized more than 80 percent of the entire world. Being dominated for centuries has led to lingering inequality and long-lasting effects in many formerly colonized countries, including poverty and slow economic growth. There are many possible explanations for why history played out this way, but few can explain why the West was so powerful for so long.
Caltech's Philip Hoffman , the Rea A. Axline Professor of Business Economics and professor of history, has a new explanation: the advancement of gunpowder technology. The Chinese invented gunpowder, but Hoffman, whose work applies economic theory to historical contexts, argues that certain political and economic circumstances allowed the Europeans to advance gunpowder technology at an unprecedented rate—allowing a relatively small number of people to quickly take over much of the rest of the globe.
We spoke with him recently about his research interests and what led him to study this particular topic. You have been on the Caltech faculty for more than 30 years. Are there any overarching themes to your work? Over the years I've been interested in a number of different things, and this new work puts together a lot of bits of my research.
I've looked at changes in technology that influence agriculture, and I've studied the development of financial markets, and in between those two, I was also studying why financial crises occur. I've also been interested in the development of tax systems.
For example, how did states get the ability to impose heavy taxes? What were the politics and the political context of the economy that resulted in this ability to tax? It's just fascinating. A thousand years ago, no one would have ever expected that result, for at that point western Europe was hopelessly backward. It was politically weak, it was poor, and the major long-distance commerce was a slave trade led by Vikings.
This happened only in Europe because it was the one place that remained politically fragmented. The competing monarchies resisted every suggestion that they unify and instead provoked one another. And proud kings were often delighted to be provoked.
They conducted endless experiments and made huge investments in research. Your go-to source for all the best Black Friday deals: tech, toys, fashion, mattresses, beauty, wellness, travel and more. The holiday, which is a big deal elsewhere, is becoming a thing here, too. If you're in the market for a new option this cold-weather season, we've rounded up four fashionable finds that will be sure to up your cool factor, while keeping out the cold. Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
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