Complex financial institutions in europe predated exploration & overseas colonialism as Dutch and english formed complex banking and stock trading before their East India Companies were founded and Central bank of england was founded to fund nine years war against france a war which was started for ottomans and had minimal conflict outside europe
Prior to the East India Companies, European financial institutions were similar to counterparts in East Asia. The Song also had banks and joint stock companies, but the need to fund large colonial endeavors such as the East India Companies meant that these practices were refined on a far larger scale than non-European contemporaries.
I don't think it's correct to discount the Nine Years War. The Battle of Lagos was a large naval battle only rivalled by the likes of Beachy Head and Barfleur and La Hougue. Incidentally, the losses incurred at Lagos by the British and Dutch happened to be nearly twice the amount that the Bank initially needed to raise for the war. Also, the loans primarily financed the navy, which was needed to protect merchant shipping across the globe, including that of the colonies.
The Chinese City Wall hypothesis is that Chinese City Walls were stronger than that of europe
The hypothesis is that because Chinese city walls were stronger than that of Europe,
gunpowder siege weapons were never meaningfully developed, which is what I said. Per Tonio Andrade:
Is it possible that China’s massive walls were one of the key reasons guns developed differently in China than in Europe? Chinese walls were so thick, were constructed so artfully, and were so prevalent that early guns—even the huge bombards of Europe—would have had tremendous difficulty attacking them. In fact, in the late 1400s and 1500s, when Europeans began rebuilding their walls to resist cannon fire, they adopted principles of construction that were quite similar to traditional Chinese principles, yet traditional Chinese fortification techniques predate guns or even catapults. (
The Gunpowder Age, page 86)
not unique to europe provinces of empire in rest of the world were no more different from european colonies in that regard
It's a far more daunting logistical task to support overseas colonies than land-based colonies. Navies and merchant marines are significantly more expensive and also significantly more prone to risk (storms and the like).
not unique to europe not unique to europe before great divergence europe was no more divided than middle east or south asia
Middle East, sure, but there was no continuous rivalry in China. A unified China beat back nomadic invaders most of the time, and Japan was only a threat during the Imjin War. Most of India was under the Mughal Empire when the great divergence occurred.
late Qing, Tokugawa Japan, were not isolated they retained limited trade and did know about european inventions and structural innovations i.e., Japanese Rangaku until they experienced european imperialism. But even then qing goverment prefered the old ways so much that they overthrew a reformist emperor without conflict
By in large, both of these countries were isolationist, even if they had small western concessions to trade with. Japan's conservative faction also ignited a civil war; it's just that the Chinese coup succeeded were the Japanese traditionalists failed. Isolationism doesn't have to mean becoming a hermit kingdom.
their failure caused deindustrialization not the other way around. India, the Ottoman Empire were not industrialized to be deindustrialized they handicrafts could not compete with european industry and they got conquered because of their failure to catch up it took around a century for britian to completely conquer india the rich region of punjab was last major region to be conquered and the Ottoman Empire was conquered over centuries. In both case reformers did not have political means to get rid of old ways on a large scale like the meji government did and for that reason european methods were applied limitedly
By failure, if you mean not being the first ones to industrialize, then sure. But plenty of places in Europe industrialized decades after Britain, yet they did not deindustrialize. Ottoman deindustrialization was because they had made diplomatic capitulations that didn't allow them to place tariffs on imports, so proto-industrial workshops were forced out of business by cheaper industrialized goods before the Ottomans could industrialize.
India's conquest was because the British happened to take an interest in India at the right time. The conquest of Bengal occurred right after a series of raids by the Maratha, plus a large tribute was imposed on the region. With the fall of Bengal, Britain gained one of the most prosperous regions of India without much of a fight. The story is pretty similar with other parts of India. The Mughals were quickly splintering, the Maratha quickly exhausted itself against its various enemies (the Durrani, the Mughals, and internal rebellions), and other states were too small to resist. The Indians were really quick to adopt European tactics, and any technological gap on land was closed in the late 1700s.
After that, the story is basically the same as the Ottomans. The British quashed the proto-industrial workshops before they could mature into factories and the like by imposing tariffs on Indian exports and then flooding the Indian market with their own, non-taxed goods.
