There were plenty of also-rans—cultures that could harness deepwater techs but who couldn’t necessarily keep up with the Spanish or English. A near-peer group that included everyone from the French to the Swedes to the Italians to the Dutch demonstrated that as revolutionary as deepwater technology was in everything from diet to wealth to warfare, it didn’t necessarily shatter the balance of power if everyone had the new technologies. What it did do is open a yawning gap between those cultures that could pull it off and those who could not master the new technologies. France and England
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