Importance of External Barriers and Axis
An earlier blog talked about how geography influences history. In another blog , Tomas Pueyo makes an interesting point: “Both China and India have external barriers that are much more impenetrable than the internal ones. The more time passed, the more they developed, and the more they united.” A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. This is one of those pictures. Strong external barriers made China and India practically impenetrable by outsiders. Europe was the opposite – there were no impenetrable barriers separating most European empires and countries from each other; hence the eternal warfare amongst them. On the other hand, the lack of such barriers also made it easier for ideas and technologies to flow (relatively) freely across Europe. Another important determiner is the axis on which a region is spread. North-South or East-West? Europe, India, and China have East-West spread; whereas Africa and the Americas are mostly spread in the North-South directi