I cannot claim to know the actual answer here, but I can definitely see some possible ones. For a start the Pacific Islands just have nowhere near as much productive land as Europe, so it’s going to be alot easier for Europeans to gather resources and build relatively large and unified societies that can cooperate on things. They’re also much more isolated from other large population groups, being scattered across the world’s biggest ocean, unlike Europe which can easily have contact with the rest of Europe, with the Middle East, and with North Africa. As such Europe has far more opportunities for ideas to spread and also a far greater need to compete against its neighbours
The maritime skills of Pacific Islanders were absolutely phenomenal, they were just working with a much tougher situation than Europe if the goal is to build a large industrial society. Europe’s own maritime cultures distinguished it from its rivals like the Ottomans, who had a capable navy but nothing like the ability that some European nations at the time had to venture far from shore
Ming Chinese ships reached East Africa, and may have crossed the Cape of Good Hope. Although, to be fair, the later Ming were generally isolationist, and discouraged overseas trade.
Could you point me towards some reading about the Cape of Good Hope bit? I was gifted the ridiculous Menzies 1421 book by my dad a few years back and it has made very suspicious of basically everything about Zheng He
Still, Good Hope or not, the treasure voyages definitely were impressive feats of seafaring. I would also suggest that they actually reinforce justOnePersistentKbinPlease’s idea, as China was undoubtably one of the most powerful regions on Earth for most of history and only really fell behind Europe after it started drawing back on sea power
I cannot claim to know the actual answer here, but I can definitely see some possible ones. For a start the Pacific Islands just have nowhere near as much productive land as Europe, so it’s going to be alot easier for Europeans to gather resources and build relatively large and unified societies that can cooperate on things. They’re also much more isolated from other large population groups, being scattered across the world’s biggest ocean, unlike Europe which can easily have contact with the rest of Europe, with the Middle East, and with North Africa. As such Europe has far more opportunities for ideas to spread and also a far greater need to compete against its neighbours
The maritime skills of Pacific Islanders were absolutely phenomenal, they were just working with a much tougher situation than Europe if the goal is to build a large industrial society. Europe’s own maritime cultures distinguished it from its rivals like the Ottomans, who had a capable navy but nothing like the ability that some European nations at the time had to venture far from shore
Ming Chinese ships reached East Africa, and may have crossed the Cape of Good Hope. Although, to be fair, the later Ming were generally isolationist, and discouraged overseas trade.
Could you point me towards some reading about the Cape of Good Hope bit? I was gifted the ridiculous Menzies 1421 book by my dad a few years back and it has made very suspicious of basically everything about Zheng He
Still, Good Hope or not, the treasure voyages definitely were impressive feats of seafaring. I would also suggest that they actually reinforce justOnePersistentKbinPlease’s idea, as China was undoubtably one of the most powerful regions on Earth for most of history and only really fell behind Europe after it started drawing back on sea power