Yeah, good point, maybe it was something like “Will to explore and colonize” that was the most important variable, even more important than the ships+navigation tech.
Interestingly, this feels connected to the ‘centralization’ variable again. In both the Chinese and Muslim empires, there’s a sense of everything flowing towards the center, whereas in the European empires, there’s much more of a sense of growing out toward the edges. In a book about the history of trade (I think?) I came across a claim that the Muslim explorers / merchants seemed pretty uncurious about the local language or culture; they already spoke the best language and had the best religion, and so while they could trade in goods there wasn’t as much value in trading in ideas (or the standard way for them to trade in ideas was for the Other to learn Arabic).
European exploration and colonization looks somewhat different. European explorers and conquerors were much more likely to learn the local languages, I think, and be interested in the ways that locals did things. A lot of European settlement of the world looks like sending farmers from the highly populated places to the less populated places, in a way that I have many fewer examples of in non-European history. [There’s the “cultivation of waste lands” in the Book of Lord Shang, for example, but this wasn’t about distant colonies.] One might imagine Europeans being excited about settling in South Africa as an opportunity to strike it out on their own, whereas Muslims might view it as a punishing exile.
Interestingly, this feels connected to the ‘centralization’ variable again. In both the Chinese and Muslim empires, there’s a sense of everything flowing towards the center, whereas in the European empires, there’s much more of a sense of growing out toward the edges. In a book about the history of trade (I think?) I came across a claim that the Muslim explorers / merchants seemed pretty uncurious about the local language or culture; they already spoke the best language and had the best religion, and so while they could trade in goods there wasn’t as much value in trading in ideas (or the standard way for them to trade in ideas was for the Other to learn Arabic).
European exploration and colonization looks somewhat different. European explorers and conquerors were much more likely to learn the local languages, I think, and be interested in the ways that locals did things. A lot of European settlement of the world looks like sending farmers from the highly populated places to the less populated places, in a way that I have many fewer examples of in non-European history. [There’s the “cultivation of waste lands” in the Book of Lord Shang, for example, but this wasn’t about distant colonies.] One might imagine Europeans being excited about settling in South Africa as an opportunity to strike it out on their own, whereas Muslims might view it as a punishing exile.