European expansion and modern science each required the other’s success

Evidence

Is it entirely the irrelevant coincidence suggested by conventional European histories that the “voyages of discovery” and the “birth of modern science” started in Europe during the same period? To the contrary, each required the success of the other for its own successes, according to the science and technology scholars writing the new postcolonial global histories. And this symbiotic relation between European expansion and the advance of modern sciences continues today, according to critics of Third World development policies. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1587 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The jacket blurb of Said’s Orientalism (2003 edition) announces that the author “traces the origins of ‘orientalism’ to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East.” To any historian of the modern Islamic world, this is a puzzling pronouncement, since students of Dutch, British, and French colonialism in such regions as the Malay Archipelago, India, and North Africa would know that these European powers could not widely control, much less effectively or systematically colonize, these vast domains until the middle, if not the later parts, of the nineteenth century. It would be hard to say that modern colonialism became effective (which is to say, performative) earlier than two centuries ago, and thus the unqualified use of “centuries” in the blurb must be traced back to the body of the book where it receives ample clarification. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 53 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern military technology was a by-product of European knowledge regimes; European science absorbed other knowledge systems while their competitors were destroyed; European expansion and modern science were mutually dependent, not coincidental — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1587 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• European expansion and modern science were mutually dependent, not coincidental #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1587
• European powers could not effectively colonize vast domains until the mid-nineteenth century #complicates (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 53
• Voyages expanded Europe’s physical horizon but not its cultural worldview #complicates (0.72)
• Colonial expansion widened geographic knowledge but kept Europe at the privileged center #complicates (0.72)