Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe’s military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe’s historic global supremacy.
Awards and Recognition
- One of Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best Books of 2015, chosen by Barry Eichengreen
"Brilliant."—Edward Rothstein, Wall Street Journal
"[Why Did Europe Conquer the World?] is a very interesting addition to the flourishing history of the world genre."—Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist
"History and counterfactuals blend into a fluent thesis, underpinned by diverting tables of data."—Martin Vander Weyer, Daily Telegraph
"Fascinating."—G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs
"A confident and sure-footed book."—Robert Fulford, National Post
"Big-picture economic history at its best. Hoffman's answer: chronic military conflict that gave European leaders incentives to harness widely known gunpowder technologies more effectively than leaders in other parts of the world. Also a good reminder of what economic history brings to today's economic and political table."—Barry Eichengreen, Bloomberg Businessweek
"A hugely ambitious book and one that no scholar analyzing transitions in global history can overlook. It is a daunting task to attempt such an endeavor, let alone succeed as Hoffman has. [How Did Europe Conquer the World?] will change interpretations of European warfare, the financing of conflicts, transitions in other regions of the world, the causes of the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence—topics that are at the forefront of history, economics, and political science today. . . . Impressive and persuasive. . . . [T]his book is a classic of economic history, which should be required reading."—Jari Eloranta, EH.net
"Impressive."—Jan De Vries, American Historical Review
"A powerful argument that resonates strongly with recent work in international political economy (Herman Schwartz) and political science (Ned Lebow)."—Survival
"In a brilliant analysis, Hoffman demonstrates the dynamic interaction between the financing of the war, the innovation in warfare technology, and the political institutions, which sparked the race toward colonization and prepared the UK for the Industrial Revolution. [An] ambitious study."—Lisa Kaaki, Arab News
"An intriguing and compelling contribution to the riveting debate on the causes of European hegemony in the world over the last five hundred years."—Seneer Aktürk, Insight Turkey
"Ambitious book of big-picture economic history."—Ephraim Nissan, Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei
"Phillip Hoffman's book answers a question that economic historians have neglected: Why did Europe conquer the world starting about five hundred years ago? Hoffman stresses how incentives made Europe's princes unusually bellicose and willing to promote improvements in war technology. Combining wide reading, the judicious use of data, and economic models that distinguish Hoffman's explanation from that of earlier historians, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? represents the very best in economic history."—Timothy Guinnane, Yale University
"Why did Europe conquer the world? Philip Hoffman offers striking new answers to this old question. Hoffman's short answer is gunpowder or military technology. His longer answer is more unsettling: the political and geographical forces that made Europe's precocious economic development possible were inseparable from the arms race which enabled European states to win wars."—Cormac Ó Gráda, author of Eating People is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future
"Philip Hoffman upends the traditional story of why western Europe conquered the world. His elegant econometric model shows that by fighting constant wars with each other and never allowing a single hegemon to emerge, Western polities had greater incentives and opportunities to improve their military technology than their counterparts elsewhere. Anyone wanting to understand how economic theories are changing the ways we look at the past needs to read this book."—Daniel Chirot, University of Washington
"Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese in the late fifteenth century, technological military superiority appears to have been the proximate cause of Europe's ever-expanding military dominance for the next five centuries. Where did this technological superiority come from? The answer provided in this convincing and tightly argued book is interesting and as definitive as such answers get."—Stergios Skaperdas, University of California, Irvine
