this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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I've recently read"The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World" and want to hear what all of you think the answer is, because I feel like the book was missing something in its thesis and I am not very sure what that is.

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[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 11 points 2 years ago (9 children)

Availability of work animals gave much of Eurasia a significant edge compared to Africa (which generally only had access to them through Eurasia).

Idk how this applies to the Americas.

[–] captcha@hexbear.net 10 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The americas had jack shit for work animals but thats sort of a guns germs and steel explanation. China had all the same materials and Europe and didn't go off to pillage the world.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

As others have mentioned in this thread, China had the potential to be the birthplace of capitalism but got slowed down by other factors like the Mongol Empire.

[–] captcha@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

China would have to be in a permanent waring states period for centuries to develop the debt systems necessary to start capitalism. It had all the resources but none of the motivation. The Mongol Empire had little to do with that, unless you meant "returning China to dynastic rule". Honestly that theory just sounds like chinese nationalist cope.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago

fair enough (I did not mean due to dynastic rule)

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