The Reformation coincided with the growth of sovereign nations, but Protestants and Huguenots adopted mercantilism through commerce and industry in order to oppose Spain and its background, Catholicism, and worked to foster sovereign nations. However, combined with the development of military technology that accompanied the ever-increasing scale of warfare, it developed differently from other civilizations and led to the accumulation of capital. Braudel and Wallerstein saw the formation of capitalism in the upper strata of the market and the hegemony that moved to Venice, Anvers, Genoa, Amsterdam, and London, but security was brought about by strengthening military power. As a result, industries developed, capital was accumulated, and the capital was used militarily and economically to strengthen and expand the state itself (developmental cycle).
At what point in time did the incident that made us realize this cycle occurred? It was a "capitalist invention" for the economic management of the Italian city-states, and had a great influence on Spain and France, which fought over Italy. Wasn't it the Netherlands, where capitalists had acquired a base in Spanish territory, at the time of the start of the War of Independence (1568) from Spain, which imposed heavy taxes? The Fugger family fell (due to the influx of silver from South America and the bankruptcy of Philip II, etc.), and Italian cities began to fall along with the Old Church, but Spanish Jews moved to the Netherlands, which was the base of capitalism. As it was established, it instigated rebellion against Spain in various parts of Europe and fought against Spain. And the Dutch era begun, which was maintained by fomenting conflicts between sovereign nations*, but it led to the Second Hundred Years' War between France and England, and the Netherlands joined Britain in the Glorious Revolution. maintained life expectancy. Ultimately, however, the Netherlands, like the city-state of Venice, was occupied by Napoleon because of its lack of military power, and it was Britain, a sovereign state, that won the Napoleonic Wars.
*The Treaty of Westphalia is said to have ended the medieval system (Holy Roman Emperor, Pope) and created an unstable system in which sovereign states existed side by side. It was able to secure a commercial area (Baltic Sea), and in the process of narrowing down the number of sovereign states, it was united with Great Britain. The process of Dutch union with England is reminiscent of the process of Britain's union with America.
Holland, Britain and the United States ruled the world by sea and later by air, but when empires on land and in Eurasia joined forces, China, Russia, Iran and the EU became an axis, the age of the maritime nations would change. It might come to an end. If that was meaningful prosperity for mankind , Japan would be forced to make a serious choice. The meaning of this would depend on whether we could correct the disparity in wealth and whether we could create a system that surpasses democracy to achieve the former goal.
The capital accumulated by the British Industrial Revolution was invested within European civilization, bringing about the second industrial revolution in Germany and the United States, and the capital was accumulated again, and this time it was invested in civilizations other than Europe, leading to the age of imperialism. became. A global oversupply caused two world wars, but it ushered in the Cold War era, controlled by two major powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union has ushered in an era of America's unipolarity. America tried to control the world (it took over the world's consumption), but there were twists and turns. It seems that they have tried to solve it by increasing the consumption power of the surrounding two major civilizations plus alpha. It is the construction of a large consumption area in Asia that responds to the increase in supply capacity in response to capital accumulation, and we have entered an era in which resource, food, and environmental problems are the premise of this. In the future, the periphery connecting China, India, Indonesia and Oceania may become the center of the world*2.
I have been thinking about the relationship and transition between Islamic civilization, which was a cosmopolitan civilization, and European civilization. Islamic civilization could be said to be the first full-fledged cosmopolitan civilization in history, but it expanded spatially further when it was temporarily taken in by the Mongol Empire. Rather, there is also the idea that the Ottoman Turks, the Safavid Dynasty, and the Mughal Empire were greatly influenced by the Mongols and Turkey ＊. These empires, however, were not conscious of accumulating capital, as their creations shew. The empire followed the path of agricultural civilization, exhausting its surplus, deteriorating finances, and excessive tax collection alienating the interior and destabilizing the exterior.
*Mongol and Turkish influence on the Ottoman Turks, Safavid Dynasty, and Mughal Empire
These regions were, albeit temporarily or partially, subsumed by the Mongols, and were basically empires established as military states through the development of artillery.Safavid Dynasty was a kingdom created by the Shiites (Twelve Imams) who did not appear openly. On the other hand, the Ottoman Turks were Sunnis who emphasized the ulama, and the Mughal Empire was strongly influenced by philosophers and Sufis. It may have leaned towards extreme mysticism when the empire was established, but as the empire stabilized, each of these three kingdoms began to show their individuality. The Safavid dynasty was a renaissance phenomenon of Shia Islam, but for the sake of rule, Abbas the Great gradually restored the authority of the ulama. The Ottoman Empire in the west was an empire that aimed to expand to the west, which was unusual for an Islamic empire. The janissaries and others consisted of residents from the European side and occupied a key position in the government (Devsirme). But for law, he used ulama heavily. The Ottoman Turks possessed the characteristics of the conquered Turkic peoples and used the Gazis heavily, but they maintained a cosmopolitan civilization by placing various conquered peoples in the right places. In that sense, it seems that they learned a lot from the Mongol Empire. The Mughal empire in the east used many Persians who had fled from the Safavid dynasty in power, and the influence of the Shiites was strong. Such a situation combined with a philosophical trend led to the advocacy of a new religion during the reign of Emperor Akbar, but the Sunni sect revived during the reign of Aurangzeb, and the Mughal Empire entered turmoil.
Looking at it this way, the Ottoman Empire was influenced by Sunni and Turkish civilization, while the Safavid Dynasty was a rebirth of Shiite Islamic civilization against Mongolian and Turkish civilization, and the Mughal Empire was a Sunni and Persian civilization. It may be said that it was the Indian (Hindu) rule of a conquest dynasty with
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