What if Europeans never colonized the world?

In your hypothetical, do Europeans visit other lands to share products and wisdom in peaceful engagement, or is Europe colonial in mindset but just not in practice?

 

I think Africa would be 1/2 the mess it is had the europeans not been busy colonising it, or at least, taken time to divy it up and set it free. There would be a lot more, smaller countries. But their governemnts would likely be more responsive than they have been. It doesn't mean it would be paradise. But given how poor off many of these countries have been due to civil war, you'd have to think they at least wouldn't be dirt poor because it's likely there would've been a lot less conflict. And it doesn't mean that dictators don't rise up and mess things up, just seems less likely.

 

If someone could expand on this one I'd be grateful.

 

Does the European population even begin to expand to the extent of overpopulation without the introduction of New World crops (potatoes, tomatoes, corn)?

 

I don't see the overpopulation thing myself either. It's not as if huge hoardes of them left to go to that many places - ok plenty did but not as an overall percentage. Certainly not to the point where them not going would result in an overcrowding problem.

 

Now that's just a sad statement. It basically asks if one culture can come in contact with another without trying to kill them. "No" is a utopian answer.

 

Well, it is an answer that is consistent with historical context.

 

Are we talking about post-Columbus Europe, the Germanic tribes, or the Celts?

 

The Industrial Revolution occurred in this country thanks to plenty of natural resources - coal, iron etc. As large as the British Empire became, there was no utter reliance on importing those raw materials.
Sure there was trade (cotton etc) but essentially to get the ball running, the continent could have existed and produced a decent amount of industry etc.

Which is kind of why I was confused by the sentence.

One could argue that indeed without the colonialist expansion of Europeans we would never have had the large competing Empires that had created a strife torn Europe for several centuries. This strife torn Europe dissolved into WW1 on the basis of foreign Empires (Germany not having one mainly), the result of WW1 was to help Hitler into power. Often wartime is the time when many inventions and technological advances are made. Were it not for WW2, would the jet engine have been developed? The computer? radar? So, the ambiguity of the question/sentence means there are all sorts of answers as to how Europeans not going abroad and stealing other peopes countries, would have resulted in a diminished level of technology in the continent.

 

But as someone alluded to - people simply don't keep multiplying. Popluation is in some way, like water - it tends to fill the space available.
And we've had a few plagues to keep the numbers down anyway.

 

There'd be no 'eurosnobs' that don't come to MLS games.

 

Much unlike the topic itself. It's a "whatif". And dismissing out of hand the notion that were it not for Imperialism, folks would not have been so ready to kill each other, while certainly not an unreasonable assertion is quite sad.

 

Yes but they are the descendants of about 250,000 colonists, aren't they?

 

I don't think it was Imperialism that lead folks to kill one another and take their land. It's how we're wired.

I'm not saying it's not sad. It is. It's part of being a member of the species homo homo sapiens.

 

Of course it was. How silly of me to think otherwise -- my mistake. Enjoy.

 

Is it safe to assume that Japan would remain isolationist, that China would not experience a new colonial urge, that no new African empire would have arisen? I don't really believe Islamic culture would have avoided decay in the absence of European imperialism, but I could be convinced... what would have happened if India were left to its own or its neighbors' devices?

It is fun to speculate on encounters between Japanese colonial forces and plains Indians; would they have understood each other better than they did Americans?

England certainly had the wherewithal to start an industrial revolution without the things it got from its early colonies-- tobacco, cotton, rum, furs-- and the steam engine appeared at about the time colonization was getting into full swing; but the British economy was goosed by gold "acquired" as a consequence of Spain's empire...

 

Are you wired that way? How many people's land have you taken? I'm not wired that way. Never so much as stabbed someone for an iPod, never mind advocating @#$%ing genocide. I'll go get checked out for mutant blood, 'cause I've obviously evolved beyond human. Then I'll try turning my sneakers into Heineken bottles.

 

Freddy Adu would really be the 23 year old he actually is ?