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The Rise of Europe

Decent Essays

The Rise of Europe

Contemporary world power, and the shift from the East to the West during what historian’s term, Medieval/Renaissance Europe, shifted the roles of two vastly different empires – the Ming and Ottoman. Even though we barely even touched on the Ming Empire, I feel like the significance of it, is far too grand to leave out in describing the rise of Europe. Both empires had different types of leadership and core goals – military and social. The Ming Empire was led by brilliant philosophical scholars, concerned not only with the external world but the development of the internal consciousness; the Ottoman based on a new monotheistic religion that stratified society, but also allowed numerous mathematical, scientific, and …show more content…

Once trade routes were established, the merging of cultural values and ideas, including technology, changed the very face of the global balance of power. China, for instance, remained as isolated as possible, content to manage the strife and political bureaucracy from within. In the Middle East, the continual struggle over the Holy Land, and the subsequent gains and losses changed the very face of the Ottoman Empire, finally establishing a more individualized state system, often ruled by European colonialism, up to and through World War I (“Middle Ages Trade and Commerce”). If, however, we find that it was economics and the promise of wealth, the desire for goods and services, and the curiosity about technological advances and other social improvements, that drove Europe outward, it was the lack of active colonization that kept both the Ming and Ottoman Empires from perhaps realizing their true potential. Regardless of the public personification of discovering new lands for God and man, the very basis of expansion for Europe was, indeed, the promise of wealth.

Works Cited

Genet, J. , (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University
Press.

Goodwin, J. (2003). Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire.
Picador Press.

“Middle Ages Trade and Commerce.” (n.d.) in Middle Ages History. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/middle-ages-history.htm Parry, J.H. (1982). The Age of

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