On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Bruce Johnson
<xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>
> On Aug 26, 2014, at 11:36 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
>> Would an urge to expand/conquer (Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Manifest Destiny, etc) be enough to initiate, sustain, & then maintain something like that?
>
> There is no such thing as ‘urge to expand/conquer’.

Speak for yourself, I fight that urge everyday... ;-)

>
>
> No one goes off conquering for the joy of conquering. ALWAYS follow the money!

Well, there is that too....

With those quips, I must point out that India and China were both
largely fractionated with intrusion of of the European powers into
their respective regions. And it was in the Western powers interest
for said regions to remain largely as they where as the commodities
they where interested in required a large amount of labor. Look at the
traditional methods for processing opium and silks and the like.

As for Japan industrialization speed up as a result of the Meiji
Restoration, while there was a lot of influence by the western powers
this was largely a Japanese initiative. Also unlike China and India
Japan was industrialized to nearly western level prior to 1900. (i.e.
less that 40 years, though there was a significant movement already
native to Japan at this time).

--
Evyn