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As the article hints, the irony is that many postcolonialists have a caricatured understanding of history. There are proper intellectual histories that establis

As the article hints, the irony is that many postcolonialists have a caricatured understanding of history. There are proper intellectual histories that establish abundantly that pre-15th century science, engineering and mathematics have been built by multiple cultures/nations and Western Europe was relatively a backwater of this international activity. Civilizations have come and gone -- all we have in their wake is some of their pottery and some of their knowledge. Come 15th c. AD and things change dramatically. Science & technology can barely happen if you're in poverty due to subjugation, so comparisons of colonized nations with their colonizers from the 15th to the 20th centuries are simply not apples to apples. Today you can already witness China and India getting started on their own scientific & technological journeys (with China obviously way ahead). In another 5 centuries, maybe we'll all be wondering about the Chinese miracle, astonished at how they accelerated science & technology so dramatically way beyond what some north-west Eurasian nation-states cobbled together during and shortly after the so-called Enlightenment.

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zozbot234 4y ago
China and India were wealthier and more advanced than the West prior to the industrial revolution. Colonization was a comparatively minor factor historically (with obvious exceptions in the Americas) ; polities have always engaged in conquest and oppression throughout history. Industrialization is what actually propelled the West to its current prominence.
- achrono 4y ago
  Surely colonization was not a "minor factor historically", comparatively or not. Polities have engaged in conquest and oppression for sure, and the subjugated have always paid the price. Baghdad for example lost its glory after conquest too. But the scale at which Western colonialism happened after the 15th c. is commensurate with the scale of scientific progress that took place there. Industrialisation, I would submit, was something that accelerated the process via radically higher efficiencies, not what enabled the development of science and technology in the first place. Let's also remember that industrialisation itself was also used as a weapon of colonization and was hardly a morally neutral value addition to Western society.

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zozbot234 4y ago

China and India were wealthier and more advanced than the West prior to the industrial revolution. Colonization was a comparatively minor factor historically (with obvious exceptions in the Americas) ; polities have always engaged in conquest and oppression throughout history. Industrialization is what actually propelled the West to its current prominence.

achrono 4y ago
Surely colonization was not a "minor factor historically", comparatively or not. Polities have engaged in conquest and oppression for sure, and the subjugated have always paid the price. Baghdad for example lost its glory after conquest too. But the scale at which Western colonialism happened after the 15th c. is commensurate with the scale of scientific progress that took place there. Industrialisation, I would submit, was something that accelerated the process via radically higher efficiencies, not what enabled the development of science and technology in the first place. Let's also remember that industrialisation itself was also used as a weapon of colonization and was hardly a morally neutral value addition to Western society.