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From a materialist perspective, why did the the global north, the western global north in particular, become so powerful it could loot the rest of the world with borderline impunity? (hexbear.net)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've recently read"The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World" and want to hear what all of you think the answer is, because I feel like the book was missing something in its thesis and I am not very sure what that is.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Western and northern Europe had been flooded with German nomads so kingdoms were constantly being carved out and borders were in constant flux. Also in the western roman empire, the pope ruled over Caesar, unlike in the east where it was Ceasar over the pope. This meant these new German kings were constantly jostling for the title of holy roman emperor and back stabbing whoever got it.

Baltic sea ship building (viking) mixing with Mediterranean ship building led to caravel built ships. The Arabs were just as capable seafaring merchants as the Europeans. But they didn't have systems to finance expeditions around Africa to fuck with Christians like the Portuguese would with them.