[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by jonesy

I really like your thoughtful insightful post. Great stuff.
IMO, based on human history "colonialism" is not a Euro centric trait. Most recently obvious is Japan's attempt to take over China and surrounding Asian neighbors. It was really quite brutish. There are so many other examples, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Medes, the Mongols. I am pretty sure humans of all stripes are the same inside. and historically have tried to subdue their neighbors in order to gain power, land, wealth.
On a tangential note, I suspect there are as many nuances of "Africans" based on tribes then just saying 'black people." These differences resulted in unending tribal warfare, slave ownership and plundering. All of which seemed to occur in tribal cultures in pre Europe Africa and North America. (recent ex: Hutu's vs Tutsi)
Sadly I think deep down we are all savage.

Yes there was violence throughout but some places have a more frequent history of it (according to this historian):

The rise of the West has played out in numerous different phases. In the first phase, the discovery of the Americas allowed Conquistadores from Spain, and then Portugal, to strip assets from Aztec and Incan populations. They then started the silver and gold mines that unleashed a mountain of capital and cash back in Europe.

That capital gave Europeans the ability to invest and take stakes in businesses that bought products from the east. It also spurred the same European countries to send enormous trade missions out to places like India, China and Japan. Suddenly, there was a surge in disposable wealth.

Violent, ultra-competitive innovators
Europe’s key competitive advantage since antiquity has been that, for whatever reason, it’s the one continent that has seen persistent violence among its inhabitants.

In 1500 there were 500 political units in Europe and by 1900, there were 25.

European history is defined by stories of the strong devouring the weak, and of constant conflicts that inevitably end with the strongest party left standing.

We can see this tendency emerging as far back as the Middle Ages, when a knight on a big white horse, fighting for his faith, became an era-defining image. The elision of nobility and the military has long been an important element of Europe’s identity.

Looking back, the Europeans have been very good at mechanising violence and investing in better ways of fighting. We evolved castle designs that became almost impregnable, invented the machine gun and, eventually, the nuclear bomb.
It’s no coincidence that such scientific and military technologies have all come from the western world, rather than from places where that profile, that rhythm of violence, has been less of a defining characteristic.

https://www.historyhit.com/why-has-t...-now-changing/

His well known book, which I thoroughly enjoyed:

A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is an important account of the forces that have shaped the global economy and the political renaissance in the re-emerging east.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-si...9781408839973/