AHC/WI: Great Convergence of the world?

Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

While replying to a post on the No European Colonialism thread, I mooted the notion of a "Great Convergence" enabled by such a lack of colonization that would allow the spread of Eurasian technologies and techniques into the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa via trade instead of colonization, such that they became difficult to conquer from the outside. I liked the idea enough that I decided to ask how this might actually be done--by which I mean, to give this a bit more of a concrete form, how might you arrange matters so that by 1750 or so the entire world, outside of Oceania, is on roughly the same plane of technological and economic complexity, particularly (but not exclusively) in military affairs? PoD can be unlimited, so make it in 10 000 B.C. if you like.

To me, it seems like the foundation has to be a failure on the part of Europe to conquer the Americas. Not only does this obviously open up a large amount of breathing space for the most complex societies on the continents to adopt and adapt Eurasian technology and capabilities to their own situation (through adopting Eurasian livestock, for example), but it probably prevents industrial slavery, which had a massive negative effect on sub-Saharan African society as well.

Any thoughts?
 

manitobot

Quite comparably Europeans did have the crème de la crème when it came to geographical conditions and advantages in the world. So obviously the POD would need to have every society and region able to get the same benefits the Europeans had. Domesticable plants and animals are one thing but other European benefits would have to be adapted to have the same level of benefit for other societies. Another emphatic thing would be contact. Contact, contact, contact is key between all members of the world so that countries can continually be able to keep up and develop with other regions and prevent the unfortunate circumstance of the lack of immunity to diseases in a lot of areas, as well as a myriad of other factors. It can be done.
 

Richard V

Workable Goblin said:
While replying to a post on the No European Colonialism thread, I mooted the notion of a "Great Convergence" enabled by such a lack of colonization that would allow the spread of Eurasian technologies and techniques into the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa via trade instead of colonization, such that they became difficult to conquer from the outside. I liked the idea enough that I decided to ask how this might actually be done--by which I mean, to give this a bit more of a concrete form, how might you arrange matters so that by 1750 or so the entire world, outside of Oceania, is on roughly the same plane of technological and economic complexity, particularly (but not exclusively) in military affairs? PoD can be unlimited, so make it in 10 000 B.C. if you like.

To me, it seems like the foundation has to be a failure on the part of Europe to conquer the Americas. Not only does this obviously open up a large amount of breathing space for the most complex societies on the continents to adopt and adapt Eurasian technology and capabilities to their own situation (through adopting Eurasian livestock, for example), but it probably prevents industrial slavery, which had a massive negative effect on sub-Saharan African society as well.

Any thoughts?
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This would require people everywhere reaching Europe in 1750 level of development independently and near the same time, that is unlikely to say the least. That might be possible in Eurasia, but for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas all they really need is be developed enough that they would be in a position to “pull a Meiji” when contact with the conquistadores is established. Really the problem is the Atlantic Exchange happened too late and human civilizations were isolated for too long such that the gap was insurmountable when isolation ended.

I think the best chance is something like a Phoenician contact with the Americas and Africa. Hanno the Navigator reached West Africa in the 5th century BC. Had he colonized Cape Verde to trade with the gold coast later Phoenician explorers could reach the New World using Columbus’ route. They would not be in a position to conquer any of them but an Atlantic Exchange 2,000 years before Columbus would do wonders.
 
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Optical_Illusion

Banned
Probably the best way to get earlier diffusion of technology is earlier ocean-crossing ships. Though for that to be likely it seems you may need to help development on the Atlantic Coast a bit more. I think colonization of the Americas is still fairly likely even with Roman technology or something equivalent, though, or anyone capable of building such ships or conducting long range trade, esp. as driven by disease dynamics which are not going to be too different in an earlier era. However, it's not impossible that you could imagine contact followed by a failure of early colonization events, and a technological stagnation on the Eurasian side while others catch up. Some of the colonial dynamics in OTL are because early modern Europe began developing very quickly, maybe quicker than diffusion could happen, even when there were the right sort of societies to receive new technologies?
 
Vuu

Vuu

Banned
No Black Death. Europe gets stuck in a high-level equilibrium trap just like China and India were. The rest of the world follows as well.

You'd want a very globalized world for this, though - so when the equilibrium breaks, the resulting massive jump in development is quickly spread.

But it's not something very controllable, really, and Africa and Australia for example do not even have the means to reach the needed population level/density before now (tropical disease, poor soil etc)

Luckily enough, we're heading towards a great convergence, but it will occur in probably year 3000 after a very lengthy shitty period as Earth hits carrying capacity
 
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