I would hazard a guess that the relative smallness of Europe played a factor as well. Less distance between all the major city-centers meant easier dissemination of ideas and trade.
This line of argument makes it seem like there is a set amount of city centers when the amount of city centers is a result of dense populations and urbanisation. The thing you need to look at is why there was no urbanisation to the same extent. Europe was in no way unique in this regard, India, China, Mexico and the Andean societies were at a similar level in the early modern era.
Looking at urbanisation as the ultimate point of a society and development is also kind of a pitfall of traditional eurocentric history writing.
![[R*dittor] Why did Africa never develop? I'm not racist, just measuring skulls for science](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/54ab8819-046a-4d8b-945b-a808d47f162d.jpeg){kind=link}
I would hazard a guess that the relative smallness of Europe played a factor as well. Less distance between all the major city-centers meant easier dissemination of ideas and trade.
This line of argument makes it seem like there is a set amount of city centers when the amount of city centers is a result of dense populations and urbanisation. The thing you need to look at is why there was no urbanisation to the same extent. Europe was in no way unique in this regard, India, China, Mexico and the Andean societies were at a similar level in the early modern era.
Looking at urbanisation as the ultimate point of a society and development is also kind of a pitfall of traditional eurocentric history writing.
Yeah, although what's odd is that Europeans traveled less because they didn't make pilgrimages to Mecca