@hydro: The Europeans only took over Asia for 2 reasons:
1. Stagnation and Conservation: Edo and Ming are famous for two certain policies that killed Asia's domination in the world:
Racism and defending the status quo.
The cultures set up there forced you to be whatever your father was. If your father was a farmer you had to be a farmer and you had to marry the daughter of a farmer. This meant that the poor remained poor no matter what, and the wealthy remained wealthy no matter what, meaning that there was little to no demand for change, and they were heavily against progress (historians even argued that China discoved the new world first, but the Ming Dynasty was reluctant to capitalize on the discovery, a mistake not repeated by our Spanish friends.)
Europe was like this in the dark ages, however we switched out of this system and went for progress, and the time of the Renaissance began shortly following this switch. Now what caused this switch? See point 2:
2. This one is an idea taken by my economics teacher when explaining the origins of capitalism in economics, an idea that is so true and fascinating (IMO):
The year to remember, 1348. The first year, in human history, that the world population declined rather then increased. This decrease was the result of one disease, the Black Death. By 1350, 30-60% of Europeans were dead, and it targeted certain occupations (Merchants and Labourers) more then others (Nobility). This placed a huge economic crisis in Europe:
Merchants were no longer willing to trade from village to village cause the tax burden (from toll booths) and risks of highway robbery were high.
Labourers (Blacksmiths, Cobblers etc.) were no longer willing to making things, cause they were all dead.
As a result, nobles and kings agreed to some of histories first trade agreements, and allowed for emigration (theory was if there were 10 cobblers in Town A, and only 0 in Town B 5 of them would move to Town B cause they could make more money there (more customers, less competitors).
The job shortages effected different towns in different ways because of how the structure was set up. Your a cobbler, so all you kids are cobblers, all your wife's brothers are cobblers. Odds are if 1 cobbler gets sick, so does the rest of them.
This first freedom of movement and deregulation allowed the European markets to thrive and allowed them to take over the world (literally). The European encouragement of trade was the only reason Columbus went on his famous journey to the west (look where that left us).
In other words, the black plague is the only reason I can brag about Caucasians being the superior race (all the weak Caucasians died in the black plague, strengthening our gene pool)
To clarify on one point:
I am not suggesting Europe was the founder of trade, however prior to the plague there were multiple toll booths on each highway, making it expensive to travel, Europe reducing that expense built the culture that encouraged trade, exploitation etc. that allowed Europe to succeed.
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