Originally Posted by Ludicus
Absolutely,in some aspects; I completely agree. But the point made is the Social Development, Ian Morris' social scores ( based on four traits- energy capture, organization/urbanization, war-making and information technology).It's a useful way to compare the east and the west. Before judging, read the fine PDF. It's very detailed, complex, and obviously, with margins of error.See how they are calculated.
It is that where I don't think the facts support the claim the East was ahead until the 19th or 18th century. Take a look at Morris 4 social criteria scores:
Energy capture:
* By the 16th century, European use of watermills was at least as extensive as the East, and their use of windmills more so. The horizontal axis windmills used in the West were more powerful than the vertical axis windmills used in the East, and so could be used for a broader range of industrial applications, and the Europeans were taking advantage of the tides using tidemills since the middle ages, while I am unaware of any
* The use of coal in the West was comparable to that in the East by at least the 16th century. While during the Song dynasty, coal usage was greater, being used for iron production, by the Northern Song China had reverted back to using wood, and Britain had active coal industry going back to the middle ages.
Organization'Urbanization:
* Although a matter of debate, in is questionable whether the East urbanization was significantly higher than in the West.
The urbanization ration of China seems to have been around 10% to 12% from the 14th to the 17th century (see table 11 http://www.cgeh.nl/sites/default/fil...nVanZanden.pdf ), not that much different from the range of 9.5% to 12.5% range Bairoch estimated for Europe from the 14th to 17th century. (see table 1 http://www.paolomalanima.it/default_...Y1300-1600.pdf ) Starting in the 18th century, European urbanization became significantly higher.
When you compare of the spread of the Black Death in Europe and China in the 14th century, an interesting pattern emerges. The spread of the Black Death seems to follow the route of the Grand Canal, and outside the area of it, while in Europe the Black Death spread pretty much everywhere according to the interactive chart except some isolated regions in the center of Europe. The spread shown by the interactive map seems to indicate that Europe was a more integrated than contemporary China, since the indication is that the Black Death followed trade routes. See the map showing the spread of the Black Death and other plagues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTn6YIwybwM
* European governments like England, where Parliament shared a significant role in governance, I would say as advance or more so than the autocratic form of government based on the complete rule by a semi-divine figure who had, in theory, no checks on their authority that you found in the East.
war-making
* I think the European war making ability was comparable to the Far East, and the West ability to project naval power over far longer distances was far greater.
European rulers ability to borrow money to support their war making abilities were far greater than the east, and starting in the 17th century, European rulers had the ability to borrow long term loans through the use of bonds and other financial mechanisms that the East last. Loans and bonds that didn't have to be paid back for decades were something you didn't find in the East. In war making social development, the East was behind, and far behind by the 18th century.
information technology
* By the 16th century, not only did the West have printing, but its printing had advanced beyond the East. In addition to the printing press, there were the intaglio printing methods of etching and copper plate engraving, which were better suited to reproduced maps and images than the letter press methods. European book production had overtaken the East by the 16th century
So using Ian Morris own 4 social criteria, I don't think you can say the Far East was ahead of the West in Social Development. In fact, in some areas it lagged. Pre modern China never went to a fully monetarized economy. Silver played an important role in the economy, but only has silver bullion, not as minted money. Part of the reason the Chinese went to paper money was to relieve the burden of having to mint vast quantities of copper coins. The Chinese in the Song through to late Qing did not mint precious metal coins, which meant all the purchases had to be done using copper coins. A single silver coin could serve in place of a dozen copper coins, and there were a number of ordinary purchases, such a cow, horse, or even a day's wage, where a silver coin (or gold) would work.
China suffered several times from copper shortages for minting coins, which is why tried paper money, which by and large was a failure. In fact, one scholar proposed that it was paper money that led to the Mongol conquest of the Song, by enabling the Song government's bad practice. While even metal coin money can be debased and abused, as the Romans showed, it is even easier to overprint paper money.
In conclusion, then, the two most-cited explanations for the fall of the Song, itsmilitary weakness and hyperinflation, can be traced as mere symptoms of an underlyingsubstitution of paper money for tax revenue, a process that allowed the empire tobecome independent of private-sector performance in the short term, thus permitting itto become more parasitic than symbiotic http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/t..._09_stonge.pdf
(Another factor to the Chinese earlier use of paper money ultimately failing, is that the letter press printing method used by the Chinese couldn't reproduce the finer detail than intaglio engraved plates could use, which would make them easier to counterfeit. When the Europeans reintroduced paper money, intaglio engraved printing can produced finder details, and even today, the very fine details on paper money is one of the major counterfeit features. The examples of Song and Ming paper money I have seen lack the kind of details you find on modern paper money, which makes modern paper money harder to counterfeit in my opinion).
"Notwithstanding", what do you mean?
That although the Portuguese were leaders in the Age of Exploration, Portugal was never one of the more advanced parts of European, and in social factors lagged the more advance parts of Europe like the northwest areas.
No, I don't have access to the full paper
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