Friday, 13 July 2018
The Higher Cognitive Fluidity of the White Mind = Origins of Consciousness
Uniqueness
Half of my book, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization, is about discrediting the multicultural claim that, as late as the mid 1700s, the West was no more advanced than the major civilizations of Asia, or China in particular, and that only a set of fortuitous circumstances gave the West a chance to industrialize first. The West did not "stumble" accidentally into the New World, I argued, and it was not "easy access" to the resources of the Americas, enslavement of blacks, or availability of cheap coal in Britain, that made possible Britain's take-off.
Columbus voyages were one among many other European explorations, starting with the organized expeditions of the Portuguese around Africa into the Indian Ocean in the 1400s. During the 1500s and 1600s, thousands of Europeans set about discovering and mapping the whole world for the first time in human history. While the acquisition of resources from the Americas, and the colonial trade did affect the timing, magnitude, and rate of industrial growth, this revolution occurred first in Britain because of this nation's freer markets, property rights, superior applications of modern science to industry, representative institutions, and a dynamic middle classes imbued with a Protestant ethic. Many other European nations, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Nordic countries, would soon industrialize in the 1800s, with next to no colonies. Overall the home market and the intra-European trade were far more significant than the colonial trade.
continue reading article at this link
~~~~~~~~~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment