#the way it did; steam engines for getting water out of coal mine (b/c this takes care of the wagon equation)
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mourning-again-in-america ยท 2 years ago
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which civilization had the greatest metallurgical skill/knowledge? which civilization had the best metallurgy? which civilization had the best geological potential for metallurgical prowess?
#part of a series of questions i have for trying to solve 'why industrial capitalism in the west when it did'#i THINK the answer is some combination of capacity for metallurgy; some pathway for electricity generation (most obvious ways seem#the way it did; steam engines for getting water out of coal mine (b/c this takes care of the wagon equation)#or with hydropower tho i'm less confident on that--that might require too much high precision machinery)#some way to use those two to get to high precision machining; and then you might also need a HUGE capital dump in order to get political#liberalization (because you need some way to get out of Holy Roman Empire levels of friction -- I think this might have been some of the#issues that China + Italy had with getting industrialization quickly)#england is fucking weird; it had political liberalism BEFORE it became a naval power iirc#france makes sense because Louis XIV was a steamroller that cleared out most of the old growth and the Revolution took care of the rest#i'm pretty happy laying the blame for the Revolution as a combination of ineffectual poltiical forces and climate but i haven't checked#HRE had to wait for napoleon to bulldoze the feudal power structures; in Italy I think it took unification;#Russia has similar known causes#I think Spain/Portugal had a case of getting too rich too quickly? not sure.#that mostly takes care of europe; 'why didn't the nords do industrial capitalism' is still an open question to me#same thing with the ottomans#elsewhere in the world I don't know enough about
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