When industrialisation took hold, Great Britain soared over Europe in power, as Japan did Asia as industrialisation took hold in the east. Both are large island nations off their respective continents. Is this mere coincidence? Partially. Sri Lanka, for example, did not experience a similar ascendancy despite its comparable geography. But Britain and Japan both benefited from their relative isolation. Without the Channel, there would have been no success by Horatio Nelson (England would have been forced to be a land rather than naval power) and Napoleon would likely have inflicted grievous wounds on that nation. Similarly, the Sea of Japan provided the Divine Winds that kept Japan from invasion by Chinese powers. In both cases, the island nations were far enough to be spared invasion and devastation from the winds of conflict from their respective continents, but close enough to be imbibed with the institutional and technological developments of the greater land masses. This proved to be a powerful combination. There is no one big explanatory factor in history. Cycles are not predictable. But the best proxy we have to a simplifying explanation in history is geographic determinism. Anyone serious about the story of humanity needs to be deeply informed about geography.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 10:02:35 +0000
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