QA：是什么使欧洲国家比其他大洲国家更发达？

Ernest W. Adams, lived in The United States of America (1966-1999)
There is a book called Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond that discusses this at length. Natural resources are a major consideration. The Europeans had tin, which enabled them to make bronze early on, and they had coal, which enabled them to make iron and eventually steel. They also had draft animals. Neither Australia, nor the entire New World, had draft animals, and that sharply limited their development.

贾里德·戴蒙德有一本名为《枪、细菌和钢铁》的书详细讨论了这一点。自然资源是一个主要考虑因素。欧洲人有锡，这使他们能够在早期制造青铜；他们有煤，这使他们能够制造钢铁。他们也有驮畜。澳大利亚和整个美洲新大陆都没有驮畜，这大大限制了它们的发展。

Tropical diseases also harm development. Sleeping sickness, malaria, typhoid fever and yellow fever are all diseases of the tropics that make people sick and unproductive.
I recommend the book.
 
热带疾病也对发展有害。昏睡病、疟疾、伤寒和黄热病都是热带地区的疾病，这些疾病会使人们生病，无法生产。
我推荐这本书。

John Prestwick, Statistician at National Health Service
Others have already mentioned Guns, Germ and Steel by Jared Diamond, which is an important starting point. It should be noted that the book is not so much about the rise of Europe as it is about the rise of Eurasia. So while it does explain how Europe became more developed than Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas, it only briefly discusses the divergences between Western Europe and other regions of Eurasia.

已经有其他人已经提到贾里德·戴蒙德的《枪支、细菌和钢铁》，这是一个重要的起始点。应该指出的是，这本书与其说是关于欧洲的崛起，不如说是关于亚欧大陆的崛起。因此，虽然它确实解释了欧洲是如何比非洲和哥伦布之前的美洲更发达的，但它只是简单地讨论了西欧和欧亚大陆其他地区之间的分歧走向。

One important factor is climate. The best predictor of how wealthy a country will be is not whether it has oil, but whether it has a temperate climate. And although South Africa and Chile are not as wealthy as Western Europe, they are still wealthier than their respective regions

一个重要因素是气候。预测一个国家富裕程度的最佳指标不是它是否有石油，而是它是否有温和的气候。尽管南非和智利不如西欧富裕，但它们仍然比各自所在的地区富裕

Although farming often began in more arid regions like the Fertile Crescent, once it was adapted for wetter, colder temperate climates, those regions developed the most productive agriculture. They benefited from a more reliable rainfall. Cold winters also helped keep nutrients in the soil and stunted the presence of parasitic insects. The latter had an additional benefit to humans in that it kept away tropical diseases.

虽然人类的农业通常被认为在肥沃的新月地区等更干旱的地区开始，但一旦人类开发了更湿润、更寒冷的温带气候土地，这些地区就发展出了生产力最高的农业。他们受益于更可靠的降雨。寒冷的冬天也有助于保持土壤中的养分，并抑制害虫的存在。后者对人类还有一个额外的好处，那就是它远离热带疾病。

In tropical regions, tropical diseases like malaria not only cause suffering and death, but they also are a major drain on productivity. For centuries, they also stunted societies from moving to more complex organization, because any settlement larger than a village would be a sitting duck for a malaria outbreak.

在热带地区，疟疾等热带疾病不仅造成痛苦和死亡，而且也是生产力的主要消耗力量。几个世纪以来，它们还阻碍社会向更复杂的组织转变，因为任何比村庄更大的定居点都将成为疟疾爆发的温床。

Nowadays, the economies of rich countries no longer depend on agriculture, but those that have a strong history of agriculture have been more prosperous. This underpinned not just the rise of Western Europe, but also two surprising economic miracles in the East: Japan in the late 19th century and South Korea in the late 20th. It also suggests that China is well-placed to catch up.

如今，富裕国家的经济不再依赖农业，但那些有着悠久农业历史的国家也变得更加繁荣。这不仅支撑了西欧的崛起，也支撑了东方两大惊人的经济奇迹：19世纪末的日本和20世纪末的韩国。而同时，中国也处于迎头赶上的有利位置。

Over many centuries, an agricultural surplus allowed their societies to develop a large literate elite who did not work in agriculture, including scholars, bureaucrats, inventors, entrepreneurs, merchants and bankers. This gave the countries the knowledge base and institutions needed to build a modern capitalist economy.

几个世纪以来，农业过剩使他们的社会培养了大批不从事农业工作的识字精英，包括学者、官僚、发明家、企业家、商人和银行家。这给了这些国家建立现代资本主义经济所需的知识基础和制度。

Does it matter how a country is governed? It does. You only need to look at the divergences between North and South Korea, East and West Germany, Zimbabwe and Botswana, and to a lesser extent Argentina and Chile. Those are as close as we can get to having a controlled experiment on how to run a country. However, I doubt it could explain the divergences between Chile and South Korea. And while East Germany was poorer than West Germany, it was still wealthier than all the other countries in the Eastern Bloc.

一个国家如何治理重要吗？是的。你只需要看看朝鲜和韩国、东德和西德、津巴布韦和博茨瓦纳，以及阿根廷和智利之间的差别。这些都是我们能够进行的，关于如何管理一个国家的可控实验的最近的地方。然而，我怀疑这能否解释智利和韩国之间的差距。尽管东德比西德更穷，但它仍然比东欧集团的所有其他国家都富裕。

The last piece in the puzzle is explaining how Western Europe pulled ahead of China and Eastern Europe. For most of human history since Neolithic times, China was almost always more developed than Western Europe. So what changed? One argument, supported by Diamond and others, is that the Western Europe’s squabbling states developed an effective, stable system of competition with each other after the 15th century.

谜题的最后一部分是解释西欧如何领先于中国和东欧。在新石器时代以来的大部分人类历史中，中国几乎总是比西欧更发达。那么，发生了什么变化？戴蒙德和其他人支持的一种观点是，15世纪后，西欧争吵不休的国家之间形成了一种有效、稳定的竞争体系。

Because of its geography, Western Europe has many natural barriers to conquest, whereas China has a long history of being unified under a large empire. This often worked to China’s benefit, because a large empire could combine innovations from a wide population and area. In Western Europe, this became less important after the printing revolution. The printing press was the most important of several communication innovations that allowed innovation to spread beyond national borders.

由于其地理位置，西欧有许多亟须征服的天然屏障，而中国有着统一于一个大帝国的悠久历史。这通常对中国有利，因为一个大帝国可以综合来自广大人口和地区的创新力量。在西欧，这在印刷革命后变得不那么重要了。印刷机是几项传播创新中最重要的一项，这些发明使创新得以传播到国外。

The downside to a large empire was that emperors often failed to modernize or even rolled back modernization. Western Europe also had its share of despotic or incompetent rulers, but they were under constant pressure from their neighbours to modernize. As Gary Cox put it recently: “If parliament curbed arbitrary regulations and tolls in one realm, then neighboring rulers might have to respond in kind, even if they themselves remained without a parliament.” If they did not, they risked being out-competed or even conquered in a relatively short space of time. The ‘too big to fail’ empires like China, the Ottoman Empire, and to some extent Russia and Mughal India, were at risk of growing complacent.

一个大帝国的缺点是，皇帝往往无法实现现代化，甚至导致现代化的倒退。西欧也有专制或无能的统治者，但他们不断受到邻国要求现代化的压力。正如加里·考克斯最近指出的那样：“如果议会在一个王国限制了专断的监管费和通行费，那么邻国统治者可能不得不做出相应的回应，即使他们自己没有议会。”如果他们没有这样做，他们就有可能在相对较短的时间内被淘汰甚至被征服。“太大而不能倒”的帝国，如中国、奥斯曼帝国，以及某种程度上的俄罗斯和莫卧儿印度，面临着不断膨胀的自满情绪。

So overall, it was primarily due to a history of productive agriculture and its effects on historical development, topped off with the effects of competition on historical development.
 
因此，总的来说，这主要是由于生产性农业的历史及其对历史发展的影响，而对历史发展的影响最重要的是竞争。

Oliver Roberts, studied Software Engineering at Birckbeck University,London UK
Christianity provided a common ideological basis for most European countries. The institution of the Church provided common languages (Latin, Greek) through which knowledge could be shared internationally.

基督教为大多数欧洲国家提供了共同的意识形态基础。教会机构提供共同语言（拉丁语、希腊语），通过这些语言可以在国际上分享知识。

Human rights were starting to develop early (Magna Carta), and they spread from the aristocracy toward the commoners.

人权很早就开始发展（大宪章），并从贵族向平民传播。

The Gutenberg mass printer first produced books, later magazines and newspapers.

古腾堡大众印刷厂首先生产书籍，后来生产杂志和报纸。

Finally, the accumulated knowledge hits the inflection point of the industrial revolution, and this propels Europe into its leadership position.
 
最后，积累的知识到达了工业革命的拐点，这推动欧洲走上领导地位。

Erikassimo
The age of migration and development of the curruca in the 7th century. This made the heavy clay soils of the Central European Plain exceedingly fertile and allowed for a high population density in Northern Europe.

7世纪迁徙和发展的时代以及铁犁的普及。这使得中欧平原的重粘土非常肥沃，允许北欧人口密度达到很高的程度。

Nort Europeans were sexted for for 3000 years for planning for extremely long winters. And persisted in a low population density environment. In high population density, people are sexted for competing against other people, primarily. While in a low population density people are sexted for competing against nature. Furthhermore, while the top intellects are similar or even higher in high population density environment, high intelligence is more spread out in a low population density environment. You only need one brainy guy to manage a latifundia where one person with an expensive brain can do the thinking for thousands. But in the sparsely populated northern europe where everyone needs to manage agriculture and save enough food for winter, each farm need a decent enough brain.

北欧人被自然选择了3000年来度过极长的冬天。并持续处于低人口密度环境中。在人口密度高的情况下，人们被选择出来，造成的结果是与其他人竞争。而在人口密度较低的地区，人们被挑选出来与自然竞争。此外，虽然在高人口密度环境中，顶尖智力水平相似甚至更高，但在低人口密度环境中，高智力水平的分布更为广泛。你只需要一个聪明的家伙来管理一个大农场，在那里，一个拥有高智商的人可以代替数千人思考。但在人口稀少的北欧，每个人都需要管理农业生产，为冬天储备足够的粮食，每个农场都需要一个足够聪明的大脑。

The age of migration also gave a reset to the economic and social system in Europe. Over time as civilizations mature, vested interest and elites develop ways to turn the civilization into a stagnant rentier system for their own benefit. When foreign barbarians invade there is a sort of reset, where a lot of dead weight is cut lose. There was a similar reset in the east with the rise of Islam.

移民时代也给欧洲的经济和社会体系带来了新的变化。随着时间的推移，随着文明的成熟，既得利益者和精英们会想方设法将文明变成一个停滞不前的、满足自身利益的保守制度（*阶级固化）。而当外国野蛮人入侵时，会有一种大洗牌，在这种洗牌重置中造成的大量人口衰减是一种减负。随着伊斯兰教的兴起，东方也出现了类似的“系统重置”。

With roughly the age of migration these low population long winter brains got access to the knowledge the Romans had collected from the oldest civilizations in the world in the ME. And intermingled with high population density people further south. This started the trajectory of European Civilization. It was accomplishing things that noone else had ever done before in the 12th century already. And was just accelerating from there.
 
大约在移民时代，这些人口稀少、冬日漫长地区的大脑们获得了罗马人从中世纪世界前最古老文明中收集的知识。与更南边的高人口密度人群混杂在一起。这开启了现代欧洲文明的轨迹。它完成了12世纪以前没有人做过的事情。从那时欧洲文明的发展开始加速。

Alton Allen, Small Business Owner. (1990-present)
A head start in industrialization, making things faster and cheaper, someone mentioned Guns Germs and Steal, that’s not necessarily true for all areas of the globe and at all times, Europe remained a back water on and off for centuries as the pendulum swings, while other areas were in an upswing, some nations that were rich and powerful, like the Malistine empire , is now broke and broken , at war with itself , run down with bad governance , compared to a 1000yrs ago, as the place to go where there was no crime, plenty of peace and security to study and do business.
 
工业化的先驱者，使东西变得更快、更便宜，有人提到枪支、细菌和偷窃（*Steel这里写成了Steal，可能是故意的），这不一定适用于全球所有地区，所有时间段，随着钟摆的摆动，欧洲在中世纪时代几个世纪里断断续续地成为一潭死水，而其他地区则在上升发展，但一些曾经富强的国家，与1000年前相比，非洲马里帝国已经支离破碎，处于战争状态，治理不善，犯罪横行，没有足够的和平与安全来学习和做生意。

Mervyn Johnson, former Operations Management
Just a quick thought on the subject Jerry.
Western Europe is made up of countries that are relatively small in area. Information and technology was easy to share, back and forth. The Industrial Revolution helped them to progress extremely fast.
After WW2, Eastern Europe was behind the ‘Iron Curtain ‘, in the communist bloc. Information and technology did not flow freely from West to East.
After WW2 many people flocked to the USA, this included scientists from Germany etc. The many skilled folk helped the USA to develop.
Now South America is very far away from Western Europe and Africa had the Sahara Desert as a barrier for Sub-Saharan Africa.
 
泻药，我只是想一下这个问题。
西欧由面积相对较小的国家组成。信息和技术之间很容易相互交流。工业革命帮助他们取得了极快的进步。
二战后，东欧处于共产主义阵营的“铁幕”之后。信息和技术并没有从西方自由地向东方流动。
二战后，许多人涌向美国，其中包括来自德国的科学家等。许多有技能的人帮助美国发展。
至于现在，南美洲离西欧很远，而在非洲，北非曾将撒哈拉沙漠作为黑非洲的屏障。

Even Grytten, Masters History (2006)
That really depends on how you define development. Is it economic development? Democratic development? refined culture? Well behaved people?

这实际上取决于您如何定义发展度。是经济发展吗？民主发展？文化高雅？品行端正的人？

I guess that many people look at Europe as a place with a long and proud history , Refined food and culture, highly developed democracy, great welfare policies, A high environmental consciousness, relatively strong economy and fairly advanced in terms of technology.

我猜很多人认为欧洲是一个有着悠久而自豪的历史、精致的食物和文化、高度发达的民主、伟大的福利政策、高度的环境意识、相对强劲的经济和相当先进的技术的地方。

But this is also the continent of two world wars and Holocaust which did not happen too long ago. And despite having many things going for it modern day Europe has many challenges as well. The European countries have an aging population, and in some of them like Italy, Poland and Greece the population is shrinking. Economically and technologically the continent is stagnant. in terms of culture my experience has been that people in Japan, South Korea, Big city America and Israel are more interested in European culture and history than young people in Europe.

但这也是两次世界大战和不久前发生的大屠杀的大洲。尽管有许多事情要做，但现代欧洲也面临着许多挑战。欧洲国家人口老龄化，其中一些国家如意大利、波兰和希腊的人口正在减少。该大洲在经济和技术上停滞不前。在文化方面，我的个人经验是，日本、韩国、美国大城市和以色列的人们比欧洲的年轻人对欧洲文化和历史更感兴趣。

I suppose this situation is a result of the Second World War and colonialism. Since 1945 the European sense of superiority towards other continents, and nationalism have for good reason been discredited. At the same time the child has been thrown out with the bathing water. Today many young people see their own continent as the source of all evil. With such a sentiment it is hard to take on the challenges the continent is facing. And if you do not take pride in the fact that it was in Europe ideas like democracy and freedom of speech was born, why would you cherish those values, or even fight for them?
So yes, Europe is in many ways a well developed continent. But it is also a continent struggling to find its place in the twenty first century.
 
我想这种情况是第二次世界大战和殖民主义的结果。自1945年以来，欧洲对其他大陆的优越感和民族主义有充分的理由受到质疑。与此同时，我们的孩子们被连同洗澡水一起扔了出去。今天，许多年轻人将自己的大陆视为一切罪恶的根源。有了这样一种情绪，很难接受欧洲大陆所面临的挑战。如果你不为欧洲诞生了民主和言论自由等理念而感到自豪，你又怎么会珍视这些价值观，甚至为它们而战？
因此，是的，欧洲在许多方面都是一个发达的洲。但它也是一个努力在二十一世纪找到自己位置的洲。

Chris Graham, Illustrator at Freelance Design (2012-present)
There shouldn’t be a question as to why Europe developed so quickly. That was mostly answered by Jared Diamond. Though he was wrong about China being homogeneous that no innovation really stuck. Given China’s history of forming a giant country, and then breaking apart into smaller countries, only to reform again and then break apart again…they are not harmonious in their mindset.

欧洲为何发展如此之快，这不应该是一个问题。贾里德·戴蒙德的书回答了这个问题。尽管他错误地认为中国是同质化的，导致没有一项创新能真正坚持下去。考虑到中国形成一个统一国家，然后分裂成更小的国家，经过一次又一次地改革又一次统一，然后再次分裂的历史。。。他们的心态并不和谐。

The real question is, why did stick with the Europeans? The advancement, the technological growth, why did it continue?
Northern Sahara and the Middle East were very advanced as well, even more so than the Europeans at the time, but it didn’t stick with them. 300 years of a golden age of learning and science…and it all fell apart.
The Europeans continued with their enlightenment all the way to the present.
Why did it all stick? Why didn’t it all fall apart?
 
真正的问题是，为什么欧洲人能坚持下去？社会进步，技术发展，欧洲为什么能继续下去？
撒哈拉沙漠以北和中东也非常发达，甚至比当时的欧洲人还要发达，但他们没能坚持下去。300年的知识学习和科学研究的黄金时代。。。但最终一切都崩溃了。
欧洲人一直都在进行启蒙运动，直到现在。
为什么一切都继续下去了？为什么欧洲的发展一直都没有破裂？

George Bower, CEO SBS Oil & Gas & Ordained Minister of the Word (2015-present)
The foundation of Western Europe is the real key. Roman culture and technology and then the addition of Christianity made the path for innovation possible.

西欧的基石才是真正的关键。罗马文化和技术以及基督教的加入使创新之路成为可能。

That is the notion that the individual is an eternal being is a huge factor in establishing the concepts of freedom. The rest dates back to the pre-Roman civilizations where metal working and art for the sake of beauty was so well established (we are talking pre 10,000 BC). There is a special creativity that is just part of the people. Yep that is racist but correct anyway.
 
个体是永恒存在的概念，这是建立自由概念的一个重要因素。其余的可以追溯到前罗马文明时代，在那时，为了美丽而进行的金属加工和艺术是如此的成熟（我们说的是公元前10000年之前）。那时开始的人们就有一种特殊的创造力，它就是根植人们内心的一部分。是的，这是种族主义的说法，但我认为无论如何都是正确的。