4 ms·

I'm going to make a rather blunt argument that the difference was the arrival of New World foods, allowing for much larger populations than was possible in Chin

• Jensson 4y ago
  > I'm going to make a rather blunt argument that the difference was the arrival of New World foods, allowing for much larger populations than was possible in China at the time. Potatoes and rice are roughly equivalent in terms of how many people they can feed. Potatoes was revolutionary to Europe because they didn't have rice, but would be nothing special to China.
  • bobthepanda 4y ago
    Corn and potato are important, but not necessarily as their whole form. They were, however, often processed into corn and potato starch, which is pretty common in Chinese cooking.
  • 7952 4y ago
    There could be a difference in labour required though and that is they key. Potatos made workers available who were not needed for farming.
  • _hypx 4y ago
    Potatoes are a lot more nutritious than rice though. Plus being easier to grow and in far more places. You also have to include things like maize, sweet potato, squash, etc.
• syntheweave 4y ago
  I would also contend that the New World had an impact, but a different one than just the natural resources. Rather, it's one of the pieces in the puzzle of "modernity", and modernity preceded industrialization as a philosophical end to which society coordinated its actions. Ancient Rome was not just agrarian but tributary in nature: the social roles creating slaves and citizens were predefined through conquests. The empire had trade, and trade helped it prosper, but trade was not respected as a foundational ideology as was the case later with merchantalism. The reason why Britain felt pressure to be an exporter was because this was where the dominant ideology ultimately led: put more assets on the national balance sheet, externalize the liabilities. That emerged from the struggle between the colonial powers of Europe over the course of centuries. The Crusades brought back new ideas, and later, so did the Spanish explorations. At first the dynamic was primarily derived from tribute, and the early conquests had a focus on bullionism: getting gold and silver. But it soon became clear that sugar, cotton, etc were more fundamental to prosperity, and by the 1700's, this had been refined by the utilitarian philosophers into a mode of thought about trade, ethics and invention that remains close to what we accept today. In the prior societies, this wasn't a topic of discussion, and therefore new ideas were suspicious by default. So even if you had the idea to explore some topic, you needed to be close to, or part of, the nobility to have an opportunity to try. And a big part of early modern Europe was that the inventors and philosophers were always upsetting some noble and running away to the next country over. So, while Britain got there first, continued emphasis on trade - both with the Americas and the East - would have eventually created the conditions for industry somewhere in Europe.
  • CRConrad 4y ago
    > the early conquests had a focus on bullionism: getting gold and silver. But it soon became clear that sugar, cotton, etc were more fundamental to prosperity Maybe less clear to Spain, which did perhaps too well with the silver? Which may have been a contributing reason to the rise of the British (and Dutch) colonial empire(s), because not getting that huge influx of silver and gold, their merchants had more incentive to keep their eyes open for other ways to make money. (Just a WAG, not a historian.)
• eru 4y ago
  Interestingly the new world foods made it to China rather quickly, too. Chinese people took to peanuts (and chilis) rather eagerly. I think it took only 50 years between peanuts arriving in Eurasia for the first time, and them becoming a staple food in parts of China.
  • DFHippie 4y ago
    Peanuts are actually an old world food. They are native to Africa.