European Exploration Innovations: The Role of Afro-Asian Technology and Ideas in European Exploration, 1400–1700
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54691/h9ptw631Keywords:
Age of Exploration; Afro-Asian technology; technological diffusion; maritime exploration; European expansion; colonialism.Abstract
This paper revisits the formation of the European Age of Exploration by re-examining the claim of an “independent Western breakthrough.” Taking European overseas expansion from 1400 to 1700 as its main thread, the paper argues that Europe’s maritime capabilities did not emerge out of nowhere, but gradually developed through the absorption of mathematical knowledge, astronomical observations, navigational instruments, shipbuilding experience, and gunpowder technologies from Asia and Africa. At the same time, Europe also developed its own distinctive features in its understanding of Atlantic wind systems, the combination of different ship types, and the construction of colonial institutions. By comparing Eurocentric interpretations, the “Great Divergence” theory, and diffusionist explanations, this paper argues that so-called innovation was more fundamentally a process of transforming knowledge across regions. Europe’s rise depended both on the circulation of external knowledge and experience and on the reconfiguration of commercial, military, and colonial power.
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