What contributed to Europeans becoming dominant?

Discontent. Dissatisfaction. The western European peoples (basically we're talking about the countries of the Atlantic and North Sea shores) wanted more than they had: the Chinese were pretty satisfied with themselves.

It should be someone.

The menace on Iberia and the monopoly of Eastern commerce started the Age of Discovery

Originally posted by Roberts [QUOTE=pinguin] The menace of the Turks was a motivation as well.

 
It might be better to say "the menace of other Western Europeans".  Unlike unified China with no immediate power rivals, Europe was fragmented into many competing powers.  This competition then forced mechants, Kings, and Admirals to innovate or to take business and military risks.  Risk taking and innovation were things that the Chinese power monopoly simply did not have to do. 

Edited by Cryptic - 14-Oct-2008 at 02:02

Originally posted by cecc44 Hi Guys, I'm trying to understand what contributed to the Europeans becoming the dominant global empire come the modern era. I understand it has everything to do with their globalization, but what made these global colonial empires sustainable for such a long time? Further, why was it western Europe that started to globalize as opposed to lets say, the Chinese Empire? Cheers :)

Aside from competition (which I won't talk about because it's already covered), there's also the population factor. While Europe may not have a lot of people compared to, say, China, it has a high population density. Opportunities within the home countries are limited, and people went overseas to colonies like in North America. Another factor is trade. This is quite important especially if we're talking in Asia. Europe, which needs spices, etc from the East, has a lot to gain bypassing the Muslim middlemen in the Middle East and setting up their own sea-based trade in the Indian Ocean.

The Europeans developed their military and industrial technology, and reform their political structure, very rapidly from around 1600. Until around 1700 most countries in Asia were competible with the Europeans in these respects, but the Europeans has a decisive lead over them by 1800. After 1800 the Europeans began really spreading their power all over the world due to the Industrial Revolution and the advances in weaponry, manufacturing and transport that comes with it.

I recommend reading "Gun, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It's a pretty good book on this topic.

First of all, there is no such thing as 'Europe'. Portugal, England and Holland had wildly different goals than Venice, Genua or Ragusa. And when the former group got powerful, the latter group got weaker.

Hello to you all

What Samuel Huntington said is simple BS. Japan didn't have any of those condition when it became a world power in the early 1900s. Half of Europe had those qualifications and yet they were as bad as their southern neighbours.

The real answer is simple. It is the economy. when those nations started concerning themselves with trade and their governments became more and more institutionalised rather than being under the whim of the representitive of God on earth then europe took the lead. And with scientific developement this lead grew dramatically.

Al-Jassas

As he said, some of those things may have been elsewhere, but what made West what West is, was the combination of all of them. 

The concept of the West developed in extension of the concept of Christendom, so yes, it was originally defined by religion. Christendom developed in extension of the classical heritage, partly, but one cannot ignore the influence of the cultures it encompassed, especially that of the Germanic tribes. The Christianity that developed in western Europe during the early middle ages was a compromise between Judeo-Roman religion and Germanic tradition.

Separation between church and state occurred in the high middle ages, during the peak of Papal power, but dissipated towards the later middle ages when faced with the increasingly strong states. Protestantism eclipsed it completely. This is why I find it a bit contradictory that Huntington uses both protestantism and the separation of church and state to define the West.

Individualism cannot be said to have been a defining factor. Until very recently Western nations stressed conformity, you need only go a few generations back. Pluralism in society and representative councils are very wide terms, you could probably find something that fits in all cultures. Diversity of language can hardly be said to have been a unique trait either; neither China, the Ottoman empire or India were monolingual.

Originally posted by rider This began long ago, from the Imperial Roman times and such.

What institutions do you refer to?