What made Europe (or rather the western part of it), a backwards

>>2216812
There are a lot of books on that topic.
An easy to read book is "Why the West Rules--for now" by Ian Morris

colonialism
safe distance from major wars (western europe's bloodiest war was the 30year war, no ottoshits, no mongols, no russians)
sufficient resources till you can exploit other places

>>2216812
Organized production, industrial revolution, trade with far away colonies.

>>2216812

Less fragile environment than the near east but close enough to them to inherit their agricultural advances, as a start.

Then once complex agricultural societies existed the metric assfuckton of coastline meant they necessarily developed good shipbuilding technology (compare Zheng He's fleet of huge ships that lacked the deep keels of much smaller Portuguese ships)

Once they reached the americas the process became self perpetuating as they had more access to raw materials and got their hands on more productive crops (mostly maize and potatoes).

1. Roman roots.
2. Christianity. Later on protestantism, specifically.
But you can't say that now, since communists rule it.
Those fuckers didn't even allow to talk in EU parlent about it's

After various innovations allowed heavy soils to be easily cultivated, Europe became a major population center right next to the Med trade highway.

>>2216812
Catholicism (Scholarship, university)
Greco-Roman civilization (Aristotle logic)

>>2216812
Mongols

Their exploitation using gunpowder/guns + tales of grand Chinese empire

Gotta follow the money

>>2216893
But... The Ottoman, the Mongols and the Russians were conflicts IN Europe.

>>2216812
Geography.

At the turn of the first millennium it was an underpopulated backwater at the edge of the world. Age of Discovery turned that on its head, making Europe the centre of the world with easy access to every continent through sea travel.

>>2217211
>>2217135
>>2217125
>>2217094
>>2217055
>>2216893

all of those and then some

Worth mentioning is, that the smaller scale wars actually helped speed up the development of weaponry of all kinds, which could add to the snowballing effect even more