The industrialization of an applied science requires overcoming a host of engineering and logistical obstacles. The folks that figured out how to do this consistently enjoyed a sizable economic advantage over civilizations that - by dint of geography or technology or whatever - were merely subject to unannounced visitors.
the scale of the shipping changed because of the massive glut of free wealth from the Americas, which hyperstimulated European economies
The early colonial empires - Spain and Portugal - had their economies destroyed by the glut of valuables they extracted. Subsequent colonial powers - England and France - focused on less commercially valuable but far more utilitarian exports such as tobacco, iron, lumber, fur/cotton, and sugar/rum. These provided precursor elements for industrialized manufacturing. And it was industrial manufacturing that hyperstimulated the economies of the colonial powers in the end.
Once the colonies established their own domestic industrial capital, they were able to launch successful revolts and de-colonization movements.
To this day, nations with large export-oriented shipping economies dominate in global trade.
Trans-Atlantic Trade was functionally non-existent prior to the Colonial Era.
I am pretty sure that other oceans exist.
The thing that I'm conceding to you here is that the scale of something like Indian Ocean trade was far smaller than the later Atlantic one.
(partially because of the rise of the euro-bourgeois, and also partially because the Americas were essentially a huge wonderland of free stuff)
Indian Ocean trade was still huge for its time, comparable to the Mediterranean, and qualitatively not much different from the later voyages by colonial powers (at least until more modern ships were invented in the late 1700s)
The early colonial empires - Spain and Portugal - had their economies destroyed by the glut of valuables they extracted.
Okay, now what happened to the wealth those "failed" countries used to hold? It doesn't magically disappear, it goes elsewhere and stimulates other regions around them.
England and France - focused on less commercially valuable but far more utilitarian exports such as tobacco, iron, lumber, fur/cotton, and sugar/rum
All of those things are wealth, and the Americas were chock full of them. You're just agreeing with my point. We can debate about why England/France benefited from this more than Iberia did, but that's a totally different argument. The big-picture reality is that there was a huge resource glut, and the Western European countries (the ones with access to the Atlantic) benefited.
Yes, even Spain/Portu benefited tremendously from it compared to the countries that DIDN'T experience it at all (the various states in India, China, SEAsia, and even Russia)
wE’Ve HaD rOcKeTrY sInCe FoReVeR
Again, my point is that there's a difference between "figuring something out" and just being a leaf in the wind of an economic breeze. The innovations of western Europeans RESULTING from this golden age were things that were "figured out" by their newly formed scientists and engineers.
ACTUAL industrial shipping (steamships, thermodynamics stuff) was stuff that was figured out in the late 17/1800s, WELL after many colonies were already taken.
The so-called "Industrial shipping" which you credit with the responsibility of colonization was not "figured out", it was just something that happened.
The Portuguese had trading colonies in Kerala and Karnataka in the early 1500s. Can you convince me that 1500s Portuguese ships were meaningfully "industrialized" or transformed in some way from their predecessors? This was almost 300 years before the first steamship was invented.
Sure these 1500s ships were probably all-around better built, due to all the money flowing in, but crediting that as the REASON for colonization is like saying that people are poor because they don't eat caviar.
The ROOT REASON for colonization is pretty much what I said in my second comment. The combination of a QUALITATIVE bourgeois societal shift from the Black Death, and a magnification of this effect via a QUANTITATIVE massive glut of wealth, and the expectation of wealth, from the Americas. Literally everything else, is downstream from this.
Trans-Atlantic Trade was functionally non-existent prior to the Colonial Era.
wE'Ve HaD rOcKeTrY sInCe FoReVeR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology
The industrialization of an applied science requires overcoming a host of engineering and logistical obstacles. The folks that figured out how to do this consistently enjoyed a sizable economic advantage over civilizations that - by dint of geography or technology or whatever - were merely subject to unannounced visitors.
The early colonial empires - Spain and Portugal - had their economies destroyed by the glut of valuables they extracted. Subsequent colonial powers - England and France - focused on less commercially valuable but far more utilitarian exports such as tobacco, iron, lumber, fur/cotton, and sugar/rum. These provided precursor elements for industrialized manufacturing. And it was industrial manufacturing that hyperstimulated the economies of the colonial powers in the end.
Once the colonies established their own domestic industrial capital, they were able to launch successful revolts and de-colonization movements.
To this day, nations with large export-oriented shipping economies dominate in global trade.
I am pretty sure that other oceans exist.
The thing that I'm conceding to you here is that the scale of something like Indian Ocean trade was far smaller than the later Atlantic one.
(partially because of the rise of the euro-bourgeois, and also partially because the Americas were essentially a huge wonderland of free stuff)
Indian Ocean trade was still huge for its time, comparable to the Mediterranean, and qualitatively not much different from the later voyages by colonial powers (at least until more modern ships were invented in the late 1700s)
Okay, now what happened to the wealth those "failed" countries used to hold? It doesn't magically disappear, it goes elsewhere and stimulates other regions around them.
All of those things are wealth, and the Americas were chock full of them. You're just agreeing with my point. We can debate about why England/France benefited from this more than Iberia did, but that's a totally different argument. The big-picture reality is that there was a huge resource glut, and the Western European countries (the ones with access to the Atlantic) benefited.
Yes, even Spain/Portu benefited tremendously from it compared to the countries that DIDN'T experience it at all (the various states in India, China, SEAsia, and even Russia)
Again, my point is that there's a difference between "figuring something out" and just being a leaf in the wind of an economic breeze. The innovations of western Europeans RESULTING from this golden age were things that were "figured out" by their newly formed scientists and engineers.
ACTUAL industrial shipping (steamships, thermodynamics stuff) was stuff that was figured out in the late 17/1800s, WELL after many colonies were already taken.
The so-called "Industrial shipping" which you credit with the responsibility of colonization was not "figured out", it was just something that happened.
The Portuguese had trading colonies in Kerala and Karnataka in the early 1500s. Can you convince me that 1500s Portuguese ships were meaningfully "industrialized" or transformed in some way from their predecessors? This was almost 300 years before the first steamship was invented.
Sure these 1500s ships were probably all-around better built, due to all the money flowing in, but crediting that as the REASON for colonization is like saying that people are poor because they don't eat caviar.
The ROOT REASON for colonization is pretty much what I said in my second comment. The combination of a QUALITATIVE bourgeois societal shift from the Black Death, and a magnification of this effect via a QUANTITATIVE massive glut of wealth, and the expectation of wealth, from the Americas. Literally everything else, is downstream from this.