“Europe is unique in having had only 20 years of peace in the previous 3,000 years. That was the 20 years Filipe II/III bought by dividing much of North America among the great powers.”
What years were that? Do you really mean Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic or are you using some other criteria? By ‘peace’ I take it you mean wars between kingdoms not banditry or sectarian violence (It was a time of Catholics vs. Protestants), Your statement piqued my curiosity.
I suppose if we look at it through your lens of ‘peace’ North America is a pretty nice place to live. We’re lucky.
It was one of those rare periods. Banditry no doubt continued, but kingdom on kingdom war ceased while America was created.
There are devout historians who believe there's a true connection between that act and the absence of traditional European wars at that time. I"ve found what seems to be the monogram IHS in the first North American continent size survey ~ also performed in that period.
Men were motivated to make this a good place. There were less motivated to make Europe a good place.
The Indians lived up stream everywhere they could find fresh water. Apparently the Spanish had an exceptionally hard time settling except on a fringe of the Gulf Coast and as far west as Santa Fe ~
This was a parched desolate land with no hope. Spain gave the land between New York and North Carolina to the Protestants to see if any of them wanted anything to do with it.
The survey teams out marking the territory with benchmark stones laid in an enormous IHS ~ which had been a somewhat popular monogram for Jesus ~