“All great powers of the 20th century had feudalism and commercial revolution.” As I mentioned before this statement is a very provocative one. I love anthropology and macro-history; a good book dealing with the cause of modern nation-state inequalities is “Guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond. While Diamond make great generalizations about why the Eurasian continent has dominated, I think one of his strongest points comes from early modern history, in which he draws a connection between the Turks cutting off trade routes from the East to Europe, thereby forcing Europeans to advance navigational technologies. Using this might be a good critical thinking discussion with students, and posing the questions “why did the cutting off of trade routes NOT cause the Chinese and Japanese to improve navigational techniques to the same degree as Europeans?” A wealth of discussion can be promoted here, check it out.
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