Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World? I

By the 1700s Europeans dominated the gunpowder technology, which was surprising, because it had originated in China and been used with expertise throughout Eurasia. To account for their dominance, historians have invoked competition, but it cannot explain why they pushed this technology further than anyone else. The answer lies with a simple tournament model of military competition that allows for learning by doing. Political incentives and military conditions then explain why the rest of Eurasia fell behind Europeans in developing the gunpowder technology. The consequences were huge, from colonialism to the slave trade and even the Industrial Revolution. n the “great divergence ” debate over when and why Europe forged ahead of the rest of Eurasia, one topic has been overlooked—namely, violence, or at least violence with gunpowder weapons. Here Europe possessed an undeniable comparative and absolute advantage, early on: European states were simply better at making and using artillery, firearms, fortifications, and armed ships than powers in other parts o