Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Very specific and peculiar conditions led to the remarkable expansion of European powers and ideas. I don't think the choices of any given Chinese emperor could have changed that.
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I don't
really disagree, but I also think people have a cognitive bias towards seeing the history that actually happened as lot more inevitable than it actually was.
I feel that living in the age of Trump people should be more open to seeing just how much the personality of the leader can affect a large country.
In the age of the emperors, a single man could have made all the difference... and did. As I said, it's about lot more than just not being interested in conquest and colonization.
Who destroys their own navy at the height of its power, and basically bans foreign trade? It was a really extreme and unusual decision that has few if any real parallels in history, and thus it's really hard to even speculate what the true repercussions of it were.