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True. Though, for 1,800 out of 2100 years, Europe and the U.K. were the major militaries and world-shaping forces. It can change pretty quickly nowadays, with our ever-more-intertwined economies, and everything happening globally at the speed of "bytes."

Quite wrong

If you say 2100 years, you mean from 100 BC. From 100 BC to 300 AD, the main power centres were Rome (Europe), Susa (Iran, the Parthian Empire), Magadha (Gupta / Nanda / Mauryan Empires), the Chola Empire in South india, the Armenian Empire in Asia, the Ethiopian/Axumite Empire in Ethiopia and Yemen, the Gok-turk, Hun and other Turkic empires in Central Asia and the HAN in China.

Then, from 300 AD to 700 AD, the power centres were Byzantium (Asia/Europe), Rome (decaying rapidly), Susa, Axumite Empire, north-indian Empire, Cholas and the Srivijaya Empire (Southern India stretching across the Indonesia archepalago), Champa, Mon in S-E Asia, Song Empire in China, Japan rising and the Central Asian confederations

From 700 AD to 1000 AD those powers also had the Islamic empire first centred in Mecca, then in Baghdad and Cairo.

From 1000 AD you had the rise of the Turkic peoples from the Seljuk to the Ottoman and the rise of the Mongols (and their descendents, the Mughals).

In contrast, Europe was NOT the world-shaping force until the age of discovery and it really took off after the Ottomans were defeated in the 1600s and when the Mughals collapsed around the same time.

In contrast, Europe was NOT the world-shaping force until the age of discovery and it really took off after the Ottomans were defeated in the 1600s and when the Mughals collapsed around the same time.

Agreed i guess it´s a pretty tough job to shape the world without having discovered it first. :-)

The mandarin-induced collapse of China's admiralty also opened the door for the Portuguese.

By 1500, the only remnant of China's big-junk, ocean-going navy was a stone junk in the imperial palace grounds. Ostensibly a tribute to China's glorious navy, it was instead an inside joke, a self-congratulatory trophy put up by the mandarins to celebrate their political-infighting victory over the admirals.

It's still there -- saw it in the travelogue footage broadcast during the Olympics last summer.

very informative posts, there.

But, just to be nitpicky, one could theoretically state the rise of Western Expansionism, not domination to both Columbus’ voyage and also to Vasco Da Gama’s landing in Goa or the Malabar coast in 1498.

I read about the Karmatians in a ME history book, and its quite a story....the only ancient Pagan idol left in Mecca become the cornerstone of the faith.

Who "ruled" Africa and the gooks, I firmly assert that nobody could care less. Lions still rule half of Africa, that doesn't make them a world force.

The Ottomans, Cholas, Susas, Auxmites, list again the entire irrelevant pack of them; they never fielded a navy that either made historical discoveries in or contributions to the New World (us). The Spaniards, the English and the French did. The Romans ran the Western Hemisphere (the "world," as opposed to the "Third World") from 100BC until Western Europe emerged as a "WORLD-SHAPING force," by having a hand in finding/creating America.

Period. Talk all you want about the Chaldinians and the hootoos and the mongloids. Esoteric is the opposite of "world-shaping, as in, "Nobody but your liberal sphincter college professors will ever give a sh*t!"

Just so you know, I used "mongloids" intentionally.

;-/