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Western Europe

Decent Essays

During the Early modern period, we see Western Europe emerge as the dominant power in the geopolitical sphere while eastern cultures, such as China and the Islamic Middle East began to fall far behind in cultural progression. For some, this separation suggests the beginning of a “Great Divergence” in civilizational development. The scientific revolution presents an example of the establishment of Western European hegemony in the global system, Europe had the necessary economic and political conditions to allow for science to become institutionalized within European society. Asymmetrically, Islamic science failed to become an institution within society due to economic power shifting away from the East and the increasing influence of the church within society. However while it is fair to view the Scientific Revolution as an extension of the overall rise in European …show more content…

However, past the 14th century, Islamic science development declines rapidly. The rapid decline of scientific development is occurring at the same time as an economic decline in the Islamic caliphates suggesting the decline in science in the middle east is part of a larger, overall decline in Islamic power during the early modern period. Simply put, “The Middle East fell behind the West because it was late in adopting key institutions of the modern economy” this concept echoed within the realm of science in the Islamic east. One of the main factors that contributed to the scientific revolution in Europe was the ability of the European society to institutionalize science, which the Islamic world failed to do. In the medieval period, both Islamic and Christian scholars adopted the ideas of “natural philosophy”— the science of Aristotle. The theology of the Christian church proved to be highly compatible with the Aristotelian schema and therefore was more widely adopted, eventually developing into the ideas of the scientific revolution in the

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