Why Did China Not Industrialize First?
China had an early and strong lead over Europe economically and scientifically, yet industrialization and modern science began in Europe.
Ever since Marco Polo came back to Italy from his travels in China, westerners have marveled at the technological achievements of China. There are plenty of stories in the media and in popular books about the amazing array of Chinese inventions and the sheer scale they did everything. It is often remarked how backwards Europeans were in comparison.
Judging by these accounts it would seem like an utter mystery how a patch-work of small backwards Europeans states always at war with each other could in the course of a few hundred years end up completely dominating the planet and forging the modern world in their image.
These accounts have much in common with the tendency to marvel at the Roman empire, the ancient greeks and dismiss medieval times in Europe as a time of superstition, backwardness and religious zealotry. There are those who imagine that if it had not been for the fall of the Roman empire we would have entered the modern era much sooner.
This is wishful thinking rooted in the tendency to overvalue high culture at the expense of practical inventions and advances.
