The Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, and Chinese were the first four gunpowder empires. So how did Europe come to conquer the world?
In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains that it’s because Europe adopted a whole society approach to warfare. Because of open co-operative competition within Europe, nations were forced to transition from feudalism to the nation-state, from agriculture to industry, and from religion to science.
Though these transitions would turn Europe into the dominant military power in the world, they would also unleash social, economic, and political forces that would challenge the status quo, leading to the American and French Revolutions.
