Devine, James wrote:
It looks to me as if the basic story is that the Western Europeans enjoyed some sort of luck that has nothing to do with genetic or cultural differences between Europeans and Asians. This luck allowed them to (1) conquer the Asians and other non-Europeans and (2) get beyond mere market economics to develop the capitalist mode of production before the Asians and other non-Europeans did so.
I know this is dangerous territory, since it will cause explosions in certain volatile quarters. But is "luck" the right word? Something happened within Europe that encouraged conquest and led to the reinvestment of surplus rather than its consumption. I realize that historians have devoted their lives to examining just what this something was, but luck makes it sounds like winning at roulette rather than something explicable by social science.
Doug
