Tempocentric IR portrays the past as an extrapolation of the (Eurocentric) present, suggesting an inevitability and normality to Western dominance of international relations and obscuring non-Western significance. Global IR literature, however, neglects the role of tempocentrism in fostering that Eurocentrism. Further research is needed to uncover the underlying causal link or latent variable that could explain the successive relative importance over time of biogeographical, cultural–institutional, and contingent–conjunctural determinants of the Great Divergence.Ĭalls for a more “global” international relations (IR) based on theories grounded in world rather than Western histories have highlighted the Eurocentrism of history within the discipline. Rather, there is a clear pattern of change over time of the relative importance of these three categories of determinants. Furthermore, biogeography, culture-institutions, and contingency-conjuncture are not contradictory hypotheses. The paper concludes that the Great Divergence was never an inevitability but became an increasingly likely prospect as time progressed. It sorts the deep determinants of economic development into three categories (biogeography, culture-institutions, and contingency-conjuncture) to provides a comprehensive review of these factors in the context of the Great Divergence, and it discusses the concepts of persistence and reversal of fortune. This article looks at the most recent data to define when the Little and Great Divergence occurred. I demonstrate these dynamics through systematic analyses of the rivalries between England and France (1689-1815) and between Imperial Germany and Great Britain (1871/1897-1918). Moreover, when territorial conflict over colonies escalated, imperial expansion could ultimately feed back into interpolity competition in Europe. Specifically, three mechanisms connect sustained rivalries to imperialism: (1) political elites' desire to improve their relative status/prestige through territorial gains, (2) pressure from public budget deficits that incentivized colonial exploitation, and (3) the creation of powerful interest groups in the form of navies and armies that favored imperialism. How can we explain this difference? I argue that the symmetrical character of relationships among major European powers, particularly in the form of sustained and intense military and economic competition, was partly constitutive of the hierarchical relationships between those same powers and other parts of the world. While interpolity relations on the continent were often relatively balanced-without any dominant power being able to permanently establish a hierarchical relationship to the other major powers-the relations between European states and polities in other world regions were generally hierarchical and exploitative, as manifested in colonialism and imperialism. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize.ĭebunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe’s historic global supremacy.įor centuries, European history was characterized by a fundamental asymmetry. These incentives, which Hoffman explores using an economic model of political costs and financial resources, resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe’s military sector from the Middle Ages on, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. Compared to their counterparts in China, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East, European leaders-whether chiefs, lords, kings, emperors, or prime ministers-had radically different incentives, which drove them to make war. In vivid detail, Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development and military rivalry. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if variables had been at all different, Europe would not have achieved critical military innovations, and another power could have become master of the world. But why did Europe rise to the top, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? Why didn’t these powers establish global dominance? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, distinguished economic historian Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations-such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution-fail to provide answers.

Between 14, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe.

Conquer the world