Before the mid 1800s, England, the Dutch and France took part in a naval trade war that England ultimately won well before they took full advantage of the industrial revolution. All knew the costs of maintaining an overseas empire, and none were as profitable as Spain's Latin colonies during the 1600s. This is why for a long time private colonization was mostly responsible for carving out empires more than brutal subjugation. It wasn't until the industrial revolution picked up steam that you saw armies being sent to dominate the natives. Before then, all or most of the powers thought the rest of the world was more viable as a trade partner than real estate to be conquered. This was a policy the US mostly kept until their possession of the Philippines. England had the advantage of being able to maintain a much smaller defensive army, and they had savvy diplomats who rigged the balance of power through defensive treaties so that the French or the Holy Roman Empire wouldn't become too dominant. The French was always potentially rich and enjoyed massively productive lands, but they suffered from a corrupt and inefficient nobility system. Leave it to the French to r****d progress in the name of excess and the way things are. As for the guns, germs and steel theory, Eurasia enjoyed an enormous trade advantage by just being located around similar latitudes. Traveling from east to west is much easier to travel north to south because for the former migrants only had to account for the terrain whereas the latter migrants had to prepare more for not only the terrain but also changing climates. I think trade is the most important and agreed upon factor for progress. With trade comes crucial exchanges in culture, science, technology, and agriculture. It ensured that those countries saved hundreds of years from reinventing the same wheel. Some biologists aren't too keen on Diamond's food and animal theories because they think it's too simplistic. However, domesticating more animals did eventually lead to more resistance to diseases that became fatal to other indigenous tribes.
back in the days, if you have dominated the the area from china in the east to france in the west, then you have dominated the world. the argument started by others saying that the middle east is all poverty and hunger, and my argument was no it is corruption not the natural resources that caused it to be that way. I do not care about whether it is EGYPT or any other country in the region I was talking about the ME as a whole. To your argument EGYPT was repeatedly conquered by other nations, not because it did not matter, but rather because of its importance.
