It is not big secret that Western Europeans conquered the world; Russia conquered the East without saying. It is also not a big secret that they still control the world today. So why would a scholar like Philip T. Hoffman want to answer this question. The author points that a lot of the answer has been known as a fact of the reality that we live today. Also, it was answered by more famous book which the answer to why European were able to conquer the word with the title, Guns, Germs, and Steel. As the title of Jared Diamond suggested, the Europeans that traveled throughout the planet had the the advances weaponry, and the immunity to disease that natives of other parts of the world did not. But for Philip T. Hoffman, Professor of Economic and History, the answer that Diamond provided did not answer the fundamental question of why Europe and no other Eurasian superpower did of the 1500.
Some of the points that Professor Philip raised that stuck with me was because of regional conflict, taxation, objective, and tactics. The first regional conflict were part of the Europe DNA. The kings of the region either conquered their neighbor for short period of time or did not involves itself the regional conflict. For example, France never took over Britain and Britain never took over France. The same goes for Spain and Portugal. They might been under the same influence from one time to another. But they always stayed separate for majority of the time. The conflicts are also bigger than conflict in the region
The second is taxation. Western Europe spend a lot of money on war. Far than any other major Empire in Eurasia. The reason for the high tax is the constant warfare that occurred between the Western states. High tax meant higher spending on research for better weapons. The better weapons meant that the other states would try to either to make something of the same strength or if they could, they would make something better. The rest of the Eurasia did not have a strong taxation to ask of their people.
The third is objectives. The objectives of the wars between the nation was not for total domination. Even if the objective was total domination, the objective of total domination never occurred. The armies from both sides would strong enough that the other even if defeated would never collapse.
The fourth is tactics. The tactics of warfare between the European states were far superior than the tactics of the other Eurasian empires. The ability to push resources through long distance. The ability to sail farther than other empires. The ability to make better forrest. Many of the Eurasian Empires are stuck with the enemies that were nomads that required less tactical and weapons. This meant the Eurasian empires did not have spend money on fighting nomads.
The reason that the author Philips. T. Hoffman made the book was to try to strengthen the points that other authors that wrote about the subject. Professor Hoffman was able to look at more than history of the reasoning of European domination. He was able to look at economical and strategical factors that seems to be his strong suit. The appendix themselves require an extra reading.
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