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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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You can't really dismiss the main text of the post and claim the subtext makes it irrelevant.
Europe was considered a backwater fringe by the time the Mongols under Subutai arrived. I mean, if Europe is inherently superior, it would not have been considered as "backwater" in the first place. The more prosperous and more developed areas then were Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. If the Mongols continued advancing and ravaged those who did not submit, Europe would have been set back a lot further or may not even have ever become the major power as it did. Being unscathed by the Mongol destruction gave them a leg up later. It is very much the same story as the USA. US was considered second or at the very least third rate by Europeans. But not being destroyed by the Second World War and one of the two remaining major economy and manufacturing country gave US it the massive advantage post-war.
A couple of things come to mind.
Didn't the mongols ravage poland? That's Europe. Meaning Europe did not get spared.
European philosophy and math started back with ancient greece. They were ahead of the rest of the world in geometry and math in the year 1000 B. C.
But empires come and go. The next empire took the science and further improved. The romans, Macedonians, ottomans etc. Europe is not one people.
At the time of the mongols the Catholics were in charge of most of Europe. Kingdoms were organized. "Backwater" might be a bit of a stretch?
There was war between the Christians and the Muslims at the time so Europeans might have been expecting attack. It might have been very difficult for the mongols to conquer the European territories.
Millions of Europeans preferred USA over europe for the last three centuries because the opportunities were scarce. Europeans were mainly a farmer people so land was equal to prosperity. They gave out farm land for free back then. Which one would you prefer?