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Red Group abstract on The fates of Human Societies: A Review of recent macro histories by Gale Stokes Stokes looks at the question ‘Why Europe’, she starts by stating that she will look at this idea from a macro historical perspective, looking at the broad history of the world rather than from a particular perspective, as really this question addresses world history. As ‘a system of interactions and encounters in which humanity as a whole participated’ lead to the development or decline of specific countries. She states that there are two main contrasting theories in this field and they are epitomised by Landes and Frank. Landes argues from a more Eurocentric perspective, Europeans he says have nonmaterial and unique aspects that lead to growth and therefore prosperity. The development of science as an ‘autonomous method of enquiry free from social constraints’ was crucial to Europe’s development and the fact Latin was used a universal language of science enabled it to diffuse and develop across Europe. We also ‘learned rather greedily’ travelling to different countries and taking from them ideas and materials that benefitted us and could be used to develop technology, production, artillery etc. In contrast Frank argues that ‘Europeans didn’t do anythinglet alone modernise’ we had good luck which lead to colonisation and control of the world’s economic system. Where as he feels China were far superior to the west, they were a highly innovative and accomplished society who sent out larger fleets for exploration than the Europeans and had mastered tools of agriculture, language and industry before the west. Yet they didn’t utilise these advantages like the west, for example Chinese people had a refined the technique of spinning thread yet this never lead to the large scale production of cotton. Stokes seems to value both of these theories yet looks to put them into the perspective of world history stating that ‘you do not have to choose’ one theory or another as each continents development directly affected the other, we can criticise each individually but it doesn’t tell us about history as a whole. So we should aim to look at these issues from a ‘Humanocentric’ perspective as ‘success is not permanent’.