Europe’s rise depended on borrowing from more advanced Islamic and Byzantine civilizations

Evidence

For several hundred years, however, it lagged behind many other civilizations in its level of civilization. China under the T’ang, Sung, and Ming dynasties, the Islamic world from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, and Byzantium from the eighth to the eleventh centuries far surpassed Europe in wealth, territory, military power, and artistic, literary, and scientific achievement. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, European culture began to develop, facilitated by the “eager and systematic appropriation of suitable elements from the higher civilizations of Islam and Byzantium, together with adaptation of this inheritance to the special conditions and interests of the West.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses Eurocentric narratives of self-generated Western ascendancy; connects to arguments in Why Nations Fail and The Wealth of Nations about geographical and institutional origins of divergence.
• CANDY: Nice dinner-party fact: medieval Europe was a laggard that copied Islam and Byzantium before overtaking them.