why have europeans dominted world events since 1500 and what have been the consequences?
August 24th, 2008 | by admin |
wwe rocks asked:
if you can add some important people, tech advances, racial attitudes, economics, and systems or gov’t that will really help. thanks guys!!!!
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if you can add some important people, tech advances, racial attitudes, economics, and systems or gov’t that will really help. thanks guys!!!!
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2 Responses to “why have europeans dominted world events since 1500 and what have been the consequences?”
By ELK on Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
They have dominated (thats arguable) since the 1500’s out of necessity. European weather sucks, and they needed more natural resources and land for their overpopulation. The consequences have been the spread of capitalism, and the modernization of places where the culture wasn’t always ready to modernize.
By bonzo_dog on Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
It probably started by the expanding sea power of the western European nations (Spain, England, France) catalyzed by the desire to reach Asia and its spices without having to endure the long land voyage, especially after Constantinople fell to the Turks. Desire to find gold and other wealth in new lands further fueled colonization in the early centuries after 1500. Regligious zeal and strife in Europe during those centuries launched extensive missionary efforts from Europe as well as providing a source of immigration.
European scientists and thinkers (Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, etc.) began making significant advances from the 17th century onward. Although Galileo, for example, was jailed by the Pope for his writings, eventually even the Vatican lifted his works from their banned-books index. This in turn helped lead to the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States, which placed them significantly ahead technologically from the rest of the world. It also paved the way for the establishment of democracies in European-populated countries. No similar “Enlightement” period happened in the Moslem world, for example, so that even today many Islamic-ruled countries have religious policies that have long since disappeared from the western world (such as punishments, even capital punishment, for apostasy) and those countries are usually highly dictatorial.
Consequences include:
The worldwide spread of European languages (especially English and to a lesser extent, French and Spanish) and Christianity.
The heavy influence of western clothing, hairstyles, and other customs.
The substantial presence of people of African (especially west African) descent in the new world due to the slave trade
The formation of many countries in Africa that each encompass multiple tribes, which in several cases have helped lead to intertribal friction, wars, and in the worst cases, genocide.