The events of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era changed the balance of forces between the different parts of the globe. This was not the outcome of some long-term process whereby Europe was becoming superior to other parts of the world in terms of competitiveness, religious dedication, or culture. Far-flung, pre-industrial empires were nothing unusual in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century world.
Contrary to the thesis presented in Escape From Rome, which argues the west took over the world due to a long term process starting in Roman times.
