Babak Fakhamzadeh
Though Sharman apologizes for the book being a tad thin, the continuous repetition of the same argument makes the narrative a bit of a slog.
The central point of the book is that the general consensus that the West, particularly Western Europe, dominated the rest of the world from the early modern period onwards (roughly from the beginning of the age of colonialism) due to a synergy between more centralised and efficient state control on one side, and more efficient and ever bigger armies on the other, is wrong.
Colonial powers ruled the seas, because those in what would become the colonies didn't much care for the seas, while the colonisers only started to control inland territories after the Napoleonic wars, mostly for reasons that had little to do with military strength, more with local powers slowly disintegrating. Until then, across the board, local polities tended to be more powerful, often significantly so, compared to the new arrivals.
Where this didn't apply, mostly the Americas, it was disease and, as elsewhere, being able to play off competing factions against each other, which allowed colonial powers to take control of land.
Sharman's deconstruction continues. The military innovations of Europe did not get exported to the colonies, where they fought with minute armies, mostly conscripted and mercenaries, mostly privately run. And, even in Europe and the shores of North Africa, European armies couldn't compete with non-European attackers. Only by 1683 were the Ottomans prevented from continuing their inroads into Europe, at the gates of Vienna, and it took until the 18th century before Russia won a series of decisive battles against the Ottomans. But there, too, due to political shifts within the Ottoman Empire, not due to military supremacy of Europe.
Even as early as 1578, the Portuguese decisively lost a large battle in Morocco, resulting in the death of the Portuguese King, which in turn resulted in Spain claiming control of Portugal, and the Iberian Union, which in turn triggered Holland, itself fighting Spanish colonial control, to attempt to take Brazil from Spain.
Pleasantly, Sharman mentions the genocide of the people of the Banda islands by the Dutchman Coen, in the service of securing nutmeg, going on to clarify that, at that time, nutmeg was considered to ward off the plague, and that in the trade of new Amsterdam and Suriname, the Dutch also received the tiny island of Run, the only English-held nutmeg producing island.
In the end, the author points out that the false claim he addresses is in large part a consequence of bias of place, eurocentrism, and bias of time, projecting backwards the European successes of the 19th century. And that this, in turn, is a matter of conveniently cutting off this European-centric view at the beginning of the 20th century, considering the subsequent losses of western hegemony after the Second World War.
Though Sharman apologizes for the book being a tad thin, the continuous repetition of the same argument makes the narrative a bit of a slog.
The central point of the book is that the general consensus that the West, particularly Western Europe, dominated the rest of the world from the early modern period onwards (roughly from the beginning of the age of colonialism) due to a synergy between more centralised and efficient state control on one side, and more efficient and ever bigger armies on the other, is wrong.
Colonial powers ruled the seas, because those in what would become the colonies didn't much care for the seas, while the colonisers only started to control inland territories after the Napoleonic wars, mostly for reasons that had little to do with military strength, more with local powers slowly disintegrating. Until then, across the board, local polities tended to be more powerful, often significantly so, compared to the new arrivals.
Where this didn't apply, mostly the Americas, it was disease and, as elsewhere, being able to play off competing factions against each other, which allowed colonial powers to take control of land.
Sharman's deconstruction continues. The military innovations of Europe did not get exported to the colonies, where they fought with minute armies, mostly conscripted and mercenaries, mostly privately run. And, even in Europe and the shores of North Africa, European armies couldn't compete with non-European attackers. Only by 1683 were the Ottomans prevented from continuing their inroads into Europe, at the gates of Vienna, and it took until the 18th century before Russia won a series of decisive battles against the Ottomans. But there, too, due to political shifts within the Ottoman Empire, not due to military supremacy of Europe.
Even as early as 1578, the Portuguese decisively lost a large battle in Morocco, resulting in the death of the Portuguese King, which in turn resulted in Spain claiming control of Portugal, and the Iberian Union, which in turn triggered Holland, itself fighting Spanish colonial control, to attempt to take Brazil from Spain.
Pleasantly, Sharman mentions the genocide of the people of the Banda islands by the Dutchman Coen, in the service of securing nutmeg, going on to clarify that, at that time, nutmeg was considered to ward off the plague, and that in the trade of new Amsterdam and Suriname, the Dutch also received the tiny island of Run, the only English-held nutmeg producing island.
In the end, the author points out that the false claim he addresses is in large part a consequence of bias of place, eurocentrism, and bias of time, projecting backwards the European successes of the 19th century. And that this, in turn, is a matter of conveniently cutting off this European-centric view at the beginning of the 20th century, considering the subsequent losses of western hegemony after the Second World War.