Why Did Europe Conquer the World?: Philip Hoffman

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Between 1500 and 1914, European states conquered 84 percent of the globe. The Europeans had developed a comparative advantage in violence, even though the weapons they employed—gunpowder and firearms—had been invented in China and long used in other parts of Eurasia. Why didn't the Chinese, the Japanese, or the Ottomans perfect this technology?

Answering this question involves historical detective work with tools from economics. The detective work reveals that the military sector in western Europe had been experiencing surprisingly rapid productivity growth since the Middle Ages. The productivity growth was driven by the unusual political institutions in Europe, which explain why small European states could dominate much larger empires.

Philip Hoffman is the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of History and Social Science at Caltech.

Philip Hoffman