The Ascendancy of Europe

Abstract

Physical expansion combined with rapid industrialisation to secure a period of world ascendancy for the nations of Europe. The period did not last long, as it was not achieved until the end of the eighteenth century and within 100 years other nations were learning the lessons of European success, which caused a relative decline in the influence of the states of Europe. Nevertheless, the dominance of Europe was not seriously challenged in the nineteenth century, and it is worth examining the qualities of this apotheosis in order to understand how the dynamic character of Western Civilisation was transferred to the scale of a world-wide phenomenon.