Age of Empire Reading 1

In the early 19th and 20th century, Europe started to thrive with industrialization. There became new inventions that allowed them to be more global. Inventions such as railroads, steamships, and international travel time had been reduced. While it took couple week or even months to get to another country. It would now take only a couple of hours. There would be more tourists traveling at this point instead of explorers because most of the world has been discovered already. As well as with more tourists, populations started to increase as well. We could see that numbers of inhabitants in Europe and America were starting to get bigger. Europe started to become a core country while all the others were lagging behind. While the previous countries would not give up agriculture, Europe thrived without it. This allowed some countries to be wealthier than others. This drift was also due to the lack of technology in these poor countries. Without the best technology, these poor countries would be lagging behind in warfare and security.

I found it interesting how the adoption of a new idea would either make or break a countries wealth. If the periphery countries adopted technology instead of sticking with agriculture, they would have been core countries. It said in the reading how even in the 18th century, all the countries were pretty much on equal ground. But in just one to two centuries later, we see a developing separation between some countries. It amazes me how quickly the ranks of countries are able to change like that.

I'm wondering about how these core countries were able to switch from agriculture to technology. Was it that their quick switch was due to their lack of skills for agriculture and thus needed something else to do? And the periphery countries now that stuck with agriculture were good at this that's why it was harder for them to give it up?

Angela Han