Why was the eastern half so much richer than the west? Was it solely because of the silk road, or were there other factors?
>>591163
And Egypt.
East was always the richest area.
>>591163
Trade with middle east and africa. Middle east is also the proxy for India/China
>>591166
This, Constantinople's location also helped with trade and taxes from ships travelling through and since it was mostly ignored by the huns it retained much of its wealth after the fall of the western half
Alexander and his succesors heavily colonized and urbanised the east which led to Syria and Egypt both being the wealthiest areas in the western world.
Why was the western half so much richer than the east? Was it solely because of the silly reds, or were there other factors?
>>592636
They were just better overall desu, even when Britain and France did socialism they did it better
>>591163
Don't forget Anatolia!
Also western Rome had a bigger problem with taxation.
>>592636
easier access to the New World + industrialization
>>591163
Why didn't the romans take the whole black sea coast like they did the mediterranean?
>>592677
They did not want unwashed slavic land.
>>591163
They just had more valuable land based on agriculture of the time. The cooler wetter oceanic climate of most of Europe only started to produce tons of grain by the time of Charlemagne, before this the most productive regions were Africa (Carthage), Southern Italy, Greece, Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt.
With Italy at risk of being cucked by snowniggers they moved to the more defensible and commercially significant Istanbul. If Greece was overrun they had their easily defended Thracesian peninsula. Likewise if the sandniggers attacked they could rely on support from Greece. This is why the Eastern Roman empire started to crumble after the snowniggers betrayed them in 1204 and they ended up being double teamed. They had to rely on courageous Turco-Mongol conquerors with their patrician martial culture and steely determined minds to salvage what was left of civilization in the area.
>>592636
Access to the Atlantic became a big factor after 1492*. Atlantic Europe got rich off trade and colonization, while the East was busy getting their asses kicked by Mehmet. This relative difference in wealth has lasted to this day. For every advance that reached Eastern Europe, the West would already be building the next big thing. So no, the Reds did not cause that poverty, although they definitely participated in perpetuating it.
*Waterborne transport is the most efficient way to do long-distance trade. This fact has not changed from the first boat to the present day. What has changed is the scale of geographic distance. For Western Europe around that time, the older, smaller networks (connecting to the Med and to the North) were eclipsed by transcontinental trade networks(connecting to the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
>>591163
Correct me if im wrong but it was due to the triangle trade.
>>591163
It head a head start for civilization.
>>592690
>muh colonial wealth
The colonies were more an effect of the geographic advantages afforded by the north western european plain. If you want to see how far colonial wealth can take a country not situated in that ideal location look at the Spanish and Portuguese.
when the Empire was divided, the East got the lions share of what was largely funding the Roman Empire, which made them survive for the next 1000 years.
In the Western Empire, only Italy and Carthage were developed enough to be real money makers, Iberia, Gaul, and Britannia were almost completely rural and cost the empire more money than they were producing when it came to travelling and defense of the Rhine River/Hadrian's Wall.
The East made off with Greece, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt, one of the richest regions of the world all to itself. With Constantinople bridging trade between Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as having enough natural defenses to make the walls impenetrable until the invention on gunpowder, it leaves little to the imagination why it was the richest city on the planet for centuries.
since we are on the eastern roman empire, i am always curious are there any uniquely byzantine reactions to the discovery of the new world? the once masters of the old world learning about a whole new land? Of course by the time it happened the byzantine nation was beaten, but the people had scattered across europe so the culture lived on yet.
>>592752
>fall of Comstaninopolis c. 1453 AD
>Colombo sails the ocean blue c. 1492 AD
The Basileia Rhomaion was far gone by then, and even if The East held up against the Turks until the discovery of the new world relatively intact, they would not have been interested with colonization because they are already concerned with the administration of the economy and the large amount of land under their control. This is why the Ottomans as well never really went out to explore the European Atlantic ventures proved to be far more profitable that Silk Road trade.
>>592999
There would have been Roman people still alive at the time Columbus made his voyage. Old, but alive.
>>592752
It's hard to speak of a pan-Byzantine reaction to the discovery at that time and I don't know how the discovery was treated in Greek writing of the time, which is generally little explored as far as I know but there were Greek sailors in the crews that explored the Americas (remember that Genoa had possessions in the Aegean at the time and supposedly even Christopher Columbus had known the pirate Colombo the Younger who is identified as Georges Paléologue de Bissipat).
>>591163
Trade.
>>593138
"Old but alive"? It isn't like they disappeared with the fall of Constantinople, you know. Greek-speaking Christians continued to identify as Romans and be identified by the Ottoman authorities as "Rum" [as distinct from the other nations of the Rum (Orthodox in this case) millet: Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Vlachs].
>>593146
I know the first expeditions into South America carried not only Spaniards but also Germans, but I've never heard of Greeks. I think in general Eastern Europe was and is too far away, geographically and mentally, to even care much.
>>593153
That's... exactly what I mean. Just because the last of the Roman empire collapsed 40 years ago doesn't mean there wouldn't still be living Romans at the time.
>>593157
That's because we generally invest in specific historical knowledge, especially today.
I generally find that older historians (I mean, still sticking to modern historiography) would exhaust you with every detail about their subject while these days you have to go to more specialist studies and articles to discover lesser known tidbits.
There were Greek conquistadors as well but you might already know that.
>>593158
I misunderstood you, then.
>>593158
>>592999
>>593138
Pmuch, yes the romans were gone as a nation but the people were still around. I know many of the byzantines fled west and some say they helped spark the age of exploration and the rennaissance, so we really have almost nothing about any byzantine patricians or their ilk's response to the discovery of the new world?
>>591163
First it was because of the near east connection and then it was because they caved to Islam.
The east has always traditionally been the richest part of the world
>>592715
Not him.
Colonies speeded up the process of feudal system's decay(which started with black death epidemic), with serfs becoming a rarity in France by the time French revolutionaries made it legally impossible.
Meanwhile Russian Empire abolished serfdom in 1865 and the number of serfs liberated by this law was enormous.
Serfdom being abolished paved the road for the creation of "rich peasant" class, both in Russia and Western Europe(except in WE it happened several centuries earlier) and migration of other peasants to cities which speeded up urbanisation and fuelled the creation manufactures which later became factories after being mechanised.
Just a simple comparison - 18th century Paris alone had manufacture producing carpets, porcelain, mirrors, cotton fabrics and sulfuric acid.
Last king of Commonwealth in his tries to revive his country's economy struggled to open a single manufacture in the entire country(which population wise was behind Russia, France and nobody else).
>>592687
>Istanbul
Mehmet, my son...
>>594384
>which population wise was behind Russia, France and nobody else
in Europe ofc.
>>591163
It had cities before Rome arrived. The West did not.
>>594459
Probably the most false thing yet posted in this thread.
>>592690
While definitely important, it does not give the entire picture.
Countries like Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Poland-Lithuania were quite rich and well off without colonialism. The United States was rich well before they began colonizing Spanish territory. Sweden as well was quite well off.
Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal were poor as shit, you were better off living in Poland.
>>592718
Iberia was rich as shit. It was covered in natural resources.
>>592644
They never "did socialism"
>>594459
>lol what was Carthage
raze and salt yourself
Weren't Gaul and Iberia mostly just empty land settled by retired soldiers and poor Italians?
>>591163
How do you know the east was richer?
>>595119
>France never did socialism
>>595375
Iberia had a number of tribes living in it the Carthaginians allied with them in the punic war and set some trade cities and outpost up there
Gaul had a lot of rural settlements where tribes and clans spread out over the area lived in wood castle towns
so their was room for settlement with the areas being rural at the time, im not sure how many people were their at the time I wonder how much they Romanized the area
>>593180
I'm a byzaboo but I really hate this meme. By the time Constantinople fell to the Turks the renaissance had already been in full swing for at least a century in Italy.
>>595119
>What is 1945-1951 Britain
>>591163
Besides the agriculture and urbanization of eastern provinces already mentioned, there were fewer civil wars and barbarian migrations in the east up until the 6th century. At the same time the shift of the capital from Rome to Constantinople meant the tax and tribute fleets of the empire now originated and always aimed for eastern harbors, managing several more trips there due to the seasonal winds and distance than was possible for western harbors.
The Egypt-Constantinople tax spine could be sailed twice as often as, say, the Gaul-Constantinople round trip. Eventually all Mediterranean shipping was dominated by eastern merchants and sailors making fewer and fewer trips to Western ports which had begun to shrink in size due to the wars and invasions of the time.
Eventually the same instability caught up with the east as well, and by the 7th century the Eastern Mediterranean was crippled by plague, religious and aristocratic civil war, and Slavic, Bulgar, and Sasanian invasions that destroyed what was left of Roman shipping and heavy urbanization in the region on the eve of the Arab conquests. Afterwards the region stabilized and began to recover slowly, but in the meanwhile the Franks had begun clearing the great northern forests of France and Germany, creating a new agricultural heartland that fueled river powered industries and started a population boom that reversed this dynamic.
>>591163
Because the east was home to ancient civilizations in Greece, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt, and thus had many highly developed centers of population, trade, culture, and technology, whereas the west was more or less untamed wilderness, with the exception of Italy and parts of Africa.
>>595899
Tax records and historical output.
