Rise Of The West Essay

Exam #2 Essay: Rise of the West Ch. 23-25 As Europe begins establishing itself to the rest of the world, Europe attains a head start among its competitors through religious influence, technology, philosophical practices, mathematics, science, and personal self-discovery. As the leading continent, the European countries had plenty room for risk taking because they had the safety net of knowing they would succeed. The rise of the West is predominantly attributed to the fact that the European nations placed their focus on advancing in their “military, technology, science, philosophy, history, and scholarship” (McNeill 376). During the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, Europe “pulled ahead” as the leading global power (McNeill 376). For

In comparison to where they stood in global power, “the fundamental factor that distinguished society in both Russia and the Americas from that prevailing near the center of Western civilization was a comparative abundance of land and a shortage of manpower” (McNeill 378). With a newly improved steam engine, Europe could easily mass produce their goods and services especially because it did not require as much human labor. With vast resources, but not the means to harvest them, the Americas and Russia were not able to easily mass produce their goods and services to their needs. In conjunction to their resources, European religion and philosophy played polar results for the Americas and Russia. For starters, those who fled to the Americas did so primarily to escape religious persecution. On the other hand, the Russians were “built around the Orthodox claim to monopoly of Christian truth” (McNeill 383). Philosophic beliefs parallel the institute of religion for these regions. European philosophers, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, are to blame for spreading the popular beliefs of how these areas began to govern