The Dutch were the richest nation in Europe in 1650. They did not industrialise. Britain did—because coal sat just beneath the surface, and the surface was a legal and geological lottery.
The Dutch were the richest nation in Europe in 1650. They did not industrialise. Britain did—because coal sat just beneath the surface, and the surface was a legal and geological lottery.
Europe's kings were not creditworthy because they were honest. They were creditworthy because they were numerous—and default meant your rival would fund your usurper.
Europe's rise was not inevitable—it was a lottery ticket. This opening article dismantles the single-cause fallacy and argues that the true engine of Europe's rise was not the Americas, but what it had already built in its own fractious, waterlogged, and chronically indebted cities: a substrate of competitive pluralism, commercial literacy, and sovereign-debt markets.
For centuries, historians have told a comfortable story. Europe rose because it was brave, enlightened, or divinely favoured. It crossed the Atlantic, looted the silver and gold of the Americas, crushed the Ottomans, bypassed the Silk Road, and—propelled by "infinite resources at minimal cost"—steamrolled its way to global hegemony. Over seven long-read articles, this series argues that Europe's rise was a contingent convergence of four independent variables—a lottery jackpot, not an inevitability.
