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?
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?