Lessons of Demopolis
The United States is really weird and wonderful.<p>Geopolitics teaches that whichever group of people that managed to tame the Mississippi river basin was destined to become a world power. The most advanced society in the world at the time of colonialism was Great Britain. Great Britain had no idea at the time of what they had in their part of North America, otherwise they would have fought harder to keep it.<p>It just so happened that the most valuable region of the world came under the control of peoples hailing from the most advanced society in the world. It was a complete, but happy accident.<p>Imagine what the world would be like if this part of the world were more like China. Liberal democracies only flourish if they are protected from the rest of the world around them. Native Americans couldn&#x27;t put up much of a fight against the Europeans because they were geographically stunted, they didn&#x27;t possess the guns, germs, steel, and horses needed to mount an effective resistance.<p>Had they, the course of history would have been very different. China has the second-most valuable real estate on the planet. But as it was not separated geographically from its neighbors, it did not have the long periods of peace needed to evolve liberal democracy, so it never did.<p>Someone posted a question on Quora once that struck me. What would have happened if the Japanese never gave up China after the war? Would the Chinese all be speaking Japanese? The pithy reply was, &quot;if the Japanese had actually tried to rule China, then the Japanese would now be speaking Chinese.&quot; Such would have been the fate of Europeans trying to conquer North America had it not been utterly stunted the by lack of horses and other necessaries to a technologically-advanced society.