Guillaume Gau | Why the West
@why_the_west
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I write , a newsletter about the development and identity of civilizations || I also talk ☢️ & economics || In 🇫🇷 here: @guillaume_ggc
Joined August 2023
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From the invention of eyeglasses to the conquest of the world:
in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Why some are so rich and some so poor", Harvard historian 🇺🇸 David S. Landes explains why the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe: ⤵️(1/10)🧵
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One of the secrets behind the development of Europe and the West lies right here, in this little corner of Burgundy.
I've long wanted to write about the fundamental role played by the monks of the Cîteaux Abbey in Europe's economic and technological take-off: (1/10)⤵️🧵
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Poundbury in the 🇬🇧, a town designed by New Classical architect Léon Krier.
In the BBC documentary Why Beauty Matters, Scruton exclaimed that "the proportions of Poundbury are human proportions; the details are restful to the eye. This is not great or original architecture, nor
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Excellent news: Italy confirms its return to nuclear energy!
The 🇮🇹 Minister of Energy has just announced that a law will be presented during the current legislature to reintroduce nuclear energy in the country.
He emphasized the dual benefits of nuclear power: it will lead to
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Carcassonne and the Pyrénées in the background.
Occitanie, France
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"We have forgotten that the prosperity, safety, life expectancy and freedoms we enjoy did not just fall out of the sky":
finishing
@KonstantinKisin
's book in one of the capitals of the West. He reminds us to cherish Western civilisation's benefits and not take them for granted
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Hermès and LVMH, the two 🇫🇷 luxury giants, are reindustrializing rural and small towns France by continually opening new workshops in the French rust belt.
For instance, Hermès opens on average 2 leather goods worshops per year in France. They are located in (1/8)⤵️
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How the West grew rich:
a few notes on this book by 2 🇺🇸 scholars explaining the reasons for the Western economic and technological take-off from the 15th century onwards.
And it has nothing to do with "luck" or colonization. (1/10)⤵️🧵
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Note: once again, we see that Europe's development is linked to its cultural particularities. The discourse of repentance "Europe became powerful through slavery or colonisation" is simply false. These are consequences, not causes.
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EDF wants to build a fleet of ☢️reactors in 🇫🇷 and in Europe to benefit from economies of scale. To sum up :
- 🇬🇧: 2 EPRs under construction + 2 planned EPRs + discussions for SMRs
- 🇸🇪: discussions for EPRs and SMRs
- 🇳🇱: discussions for 2 EPRs and SMRs
- 🇵🇱: bid for 6 EPRs (+
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Another concrete example: it was in the forge of the Burgundy Abbey of Fontenay that the hydraulic hammer was invented in the 13th century, a major breakthrough in the history of European metallurgy.
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Next, the techniques.
The Cistercian monks were obsessed with agricultural and industrial innovation. More production meant more resources to serve their spiritual mission. Every year, monks from the European daughter abbeys came to Cîteaux:
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The Cîteaux Abbey was founded on 21 March 1098. The Cistercian monks advocated asceticism and made work a fundamental value, in contrast to the wealthy nearby abbey of Cluny, which they criticised for devoting too little time to work in daily life.
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improving productivity at work meant that more time could be devoted to prayer. The spirit of production and the value of work developed in these monasteries: for the author, industry was originally a Western vision of the world.
The monastery is the ancestor of the factory.
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Beyond the immense spiritual influence of Cîteaux (& Cluny) on medieval Europe, Harvard anthropologist 🇺🇸 Joseph Henrich shows that Cistercian monasteries played a crucial role inshaping the mentalities and techniques that paved the way for the industrial revolution.
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The passenger's dilemma, or why Westerners conquered the world.
A friend is driving way too fast and hits a pedestrian. You are a passenger in the vehicle. If you testify that he was within the speed limit, he avoids prison. What do you do?
Westerners respond (1/12)⤵️ 🧵
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First, mentalities.
Henrich explains that several centuries before Protestantism (at the origin of the spirit of capitalism according to Max Weber), the Cistercian monks propagated the work ethic throughout Europe. It is based on an academic study (Andersen
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In his book La Religion industrielle, philosopher Pierre Musso explains that it was in the European monasteries of the 12th century that the concept of productivity first appeared. Monks divided their time between prayer and work ("ora et labora", pray and work):
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& al, 2011) on the influence of Cistercian monasteries in England: the more Cistercian monasteries a county had, the more its current inhabitants respond that children should be taught the importance of hard work.
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Cîteaux would develop an extensive European network: it was the mother abbey of more than 500 monasteries, from Portugal to Scotland, from Provence to Romania. It was a truly pan-European multinational.
So, what was its fundamental impact on Europe's development?
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Good news: Italy is beginning to return to nuclear power.
A few key points:
- Giorgia Meloni's government is in favour of nuclear power and has just launched a working group to draw up a national strategy for the development of nuclear energy in 🇮🇹.
- EDF's SMR reactors could be
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They took advantage of the opportunity to share their technical and agricultural advances. Innovation was thus disseminated throughout Europe. And people living close to the monasteries benefited because the monks taught them about these advances. He quotes a study
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In conclusion, these Cistercian monks did more than just pray to God:
throughout Europe, they sowed the seeds of the industrial revolution that would enable the continent to achieve an economic and technological take-off unprecedented in the history of mankind.
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showing that English counties with Cistercian monasteries enjoyed faster growth in productivity from the 13th century onwards.
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@vintagemapstore
In the same spirit: during the French Revolution, a proposal for organizing the newly created départements (inspired by the 🇺🇸 states)
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“The Japanese seem to love themselves much better than we do, or at least support themselves”:
in The Lessons of Japan, a French historian compares 🇯🇵 and 🇫🇷. He shows that this country, very politically incorrect, escapes many ills.
What I've learned: ⤵️(1/10)
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"It was only much, much later when I saw what was happening in the West that I understood the why: we teach our children about the tragic realities of the past because unless we do, they will repeat them."
Gen Z think Bin Laden had a point. Why are you surprised?
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When and why did the West take off?
There is every indication that a major transformation took place in Europe between 1000 and 1500.
Europe began to develop economically and scientifically long before colonization. ⤵️🧵(1/10)
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Good news: EDF is in talks with 9 European countries to sell its ☢️ EPR2 reactors.
These countries are : 🇬🇧🇮🇹🇨🇿🇵🇱🇫🇮🇸🇪🇸🇰🇸🇮🇳🇱.
While discussions are at various stages of maturity, EDF would like to build a fleet of EPR reactors in Europe. This may seem paradoxical at a time when
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In February 2023, I published the study "France in the European battle for gigafactories".
Today I'm bringing out the 2024 edition. I take stock of last year (victories & defeats) and identify 6 major industrial projects in 🇪🇺 that 🇫🇷 competes for this year: (1/10)⤵️🧵
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Good news from Autralia: a recent poll shows that less than 1 in 5 Australians oppose ending the ban on the use of nuclear power in the nation.
The polling shows that when voters were asked whether "🇦🇺 should rethink its moratorium (ban) on nuclear power to give it more
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Sources :
- "The WEIRDest people in the world" by J. Henrich
- "La Religion industrielle" by Pierre Musso
- "Religious Orders and Growth through Cultural Change in Pre-Industrial England", Andersen & al, 2011
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Hinkley Point C: Steam Generator 1 & 3 ready to be shipped from 🇫🇷 to 🇬🇧.
These EPR Steam Generators were manufactured by Framatome in its Saint Marcel's factory in Burgondy.
Measuring 25-metres high and weighing 510 tonnes each, the job of the Steam Generators within the
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In his masterful work "What is the West?", political ideas historian Philippe Nemo explains the 5 historical processes that have led to the success of the West, shaping the mindset of today's Western civilization:
(1/10)⤵️🧵
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You can follow me on 𝕏 and subscribe to my newsletter Why the West (link in my 𝕏 bio), I regularly publish on the economy and the identity of civilizations (the West, 🇯🇵, 🇮🇳...).
End of thread (10/10).
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The direct link to my newsletter Why the West:
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Last week, Danish giant Novo Nordisk announced a €2.1 billion investment in Chartres, south-west of Paris.
🇫🇷 was competing with Ireland (the world's 5th largest pharmaceutical exporter) to receive this investment.
6 reasons why France was chosen (with☢️inside): (1/10)⤵️
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Now / in 2035.
View of Penly ☢️ power plant in Normandy, 🇫🇷.
2x1650 MW EPR reactors will be added to the 2 existing reactors, providing clean power to 6 million people.
Works start in 2024.
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The Cistercian order, the medieval multinational corporation
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@Culture_Crit
I really like the View of Dresden by Moonlight by 🇳🇴 painter Johan Christian Dahl
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Soon a small nuclear power station on the banks of the Loire river to replace one of the last 2 coal-fired power plants in 🇫🇷 ?
EDF is going to study the possibility of building a Nuward SMR, a small nuclear power station with 2x170 MW reactors, on the site of the Cordemais
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Duel 🇰🇷 vs 🇫🇷 for the construction of the next Czech ☢️ reactors.
The 🇨🇿 government has selected EDF and Korea's KHNP to compete in the final tender for the construction of the country's next 4 reactors. Westinghouse was eliminated.
The Koreans are
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no "correlation between the magnitude and timing of the Western countries economic growth and the magnitude and timing of their participation in imperialism".
Rather, colonialism/imperialism is a consequence of economic power, not a cause.
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The answer: freedom and innovation.
The 15th century saw the emergence of an economic sphere (merchants, cities) increasingly autonomous from political and religious power. This freedom fostered innovation
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Why did Europe invent modern science?
Because Christian doctrine postulates the existence of a God who organizes a universe ordered according to laws that can be discovered. Newton and European scholars who invented modern science in the 17th century discovered the great
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The anthropologist shows that over the last 2 millennia, Westerners have developed a particular psychology, replacing the clan or tribal mentality (the natural organisation of humanity, based on kinship) with a more individualistic, universal and impartial mentality.
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I wanted to better understand how Indian leaders see the world and the future of their country.
So I read The India Way, the book of
@DrSJaishankar
, the 🇮🇳 Minister of External affairs.
One thing is clear: the Indians want to make up for lost time.
I have taken 4 main ideas
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in many fields (commerce, science, eco-law, etc.), and these innovations are at the root of the economic take-off.
Innovation needs freedom and legal certainty: it therefore emerged in pluralistic societies guaranteeing property rights.
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It is the great historical question of the 2nd millennium: why did Europe conquer the rest of the world and not the rest of the world conquer Europe?
In How the West won, the 🇺🇸 sociologist of religions Rodney Stark provides his answer ⤵️🧵 (1/15)
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Now / in 2038
Views of Gravelines ☢️ power plant close to Dunkirk, north of 🇫🇷:
- 2x1650 MW EPR2 reactors will be added to the 6 existing reactors, providing additionnal clean power to 6 million people (half of Paris region population)
- €16 bn investment
- Works start in 2026
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Finally, a more personal recommendation: I recommend the magnificent film "Silence" by Martin Scorcese. It tells the cruel fate of two Jesuit priests facing the persecution of Christians in 17th century Japan.
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First, the authors point out that for millennia, poverty among the masses was the norm:
"These eras of misery have been mythologized and may even be remembered as golden ages of pastoral simplicity", when in reality, the masses lived in the "silence of poverty".
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- luck then?
Then how do you explain the fact that the last 4 major economic revolutions took place in the West (mercantile revolution in the 15th century, 1st, 2nd and 3rd industrial revolutions)?
"When lightning has struck 4 times in one place, it seems appropriate to
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These maps show that the longer a country has been Christian, the lower the intensity of kinship or clan ties in its society. Africa and Asia, in red, show a high rate of kinship intensity, unlike the old Christian regions.
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"This paradigm spread across Europe through education, which we can observe by the proliferation of mathematics textbooks and schools. It was this paradigm, more than science itself, that drove progress. It was this mathematical revolution that created modernity."
Great paper on
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The authors then examine various widespread but false explanations for the West's economic take-off:
- the authors show that it was not colonization that enriched the West: there is
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@AngelicaOung
And the best part is that local communities are fighting to have their new reactors.
For instance here, in the north of Bordeaux, where local communities & regional council lobby to be selected to install 2 EPRs, in addition to the 4 existing reactors
La Gironde veut ses réacteurs EPR2 :
après la 1ère vague de 6 réacteurs (2 à Penly, 2 à Gravelines et 2 au Bugey), une 2nde vague de 8 réacteurs pourrait être confirmée et les élus et habitants du territoire de la centrale du blayais voudraient leur paire d'EPR2. La centrale
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"How the West grew rich": a few notes on this book by 2 🇺🇸 academics explaining the reasons for the Western economic and technological take-off from the 15th century onwards.
And it has nothing to do with "luck" or colonization. (1/11) ⤵️🧵
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The Pamiers Cathedral (100 km south of Toulouse).
Pure Occitan Gothic style
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From the fourth century onwards, the Church began to prohibit marriages between cousins of increasingly distant degrees. By weakening the bonds of kinship, the Church unwittingly encouraged the emergence of contractual associations (non-familial or non-clan-based) such as
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inquire what it is about the topography of the place that attracts is so persistently".
So how did Western prosperity come about?
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Indeed, in 🇨🇦, 🇨🇭 or 🇺🇸, 90% of participants replied that they don't want to lie to help their friend.
Overall, Westerners stand out from the rest of the world for the very high proportion of participants who refuse to lie to help their friend.
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@Architectolder
Same picture, 2400 years ago...
Reconstitution of The Theatre of Dionysus, built on the south slope of the Acropolis hill.
The theatre reached its fullest extent in the fourth century BC under the epistates of Lycurgus when it would have had a capacity of up to 25,000.
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“Greece invented the architectural orders, which, until the first half of the 20th century, will be the basic syntax of the Western architectural language”
As a complement, my article What the West owes to Greco-Roman antiquity:
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guilds, charter towns, universities, companies, etc.
This mentality gradually led to the development of social mobility, individualism, the rule of law and complex societies not based on blood ties.
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"If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference" writes Landes.
I try to sum up this extremely dense 800-page book in one sentence: it is the specific culture that explains the Western economic and scientific take-off.
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"The rise of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the second half of the second millennium":
In Civilizations, The West & the Rest, 🇬🇧 Historian N. Ferguson explains the 6 reasons why the West conquered the world: ⤵️🧵 (1/10)
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According to Landes, this innovation-oriented mentality has 4 main sources:
1. respect for manual labour in the Judeo-Christian tradition;
2. the subordination of nature to man in the Judeo-Christian tradition;
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Landes rejects certain Marxist theories that explain the wealth of the West by its imperialism.
Colonization is a consequence of Western expansion (military superiority resulting from scientific progress), not a cause.
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Crucial to scientific and economic growth, these 2 technologies spread throughout Europe.
At the same time, movable type printing was banned in the Ottoman Empire: this was an important factor in the future divergence between Europe and the Islamic world.
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@archi_tradition
The cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, 🇫🇷.
It is built entirely in black lava stone
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regions that have experienced deindustrialization (Ardennes, Normandy, Charente, Auvergne etc.), thus helping to revive parts of France where the unemployment rate was high.
This represents 5,000 jobs created since 2013.
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The conclusion is clear: to say that Europe and the West became rich through colonisation and slavery is false. Its scientific and economic rise began much earlier and its causes are internal to its civilisation.
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Recent research confirms the authors' analysis.
According to David Landes, former professor at Harvard, the key factor explaining the rise of Europe is a mindset geared towards innovation. This is what he refers to as "the invention of invention" :
From the invention of eyeglasses to the conquest of the world:
in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Why some are so rich and some so poor", Harvard historian 🇺🇸 David S. Landes explains why the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe: ⤵️(1/10)🧵
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Initially far lower than in China, the number of inventions in Europe rose steadily from the 10th century onwards, and by the 15th century had far surpassed China (see graph). This is largely explained by the rise of universities and the spread of innovation.
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One of the big differences in daily life compared to 🇫🇷 for the author: security, for him and his loved ones. Delinquency and assaults are non-existent. It's reading this passage that one understands that the French have become accustomed to an very high level of delinquency
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Here is Henrich's thesis summarised in a diagram: from the establishment by the Church of increasingly strict rules on marriage in the early Middle Ages to the gradual emergence of contemporary Western liberal society more than 1 millennium later.
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In my native region of Tarn (in Occitanie, near Toulouse), the town of Graulhet (considered the French capital of leather) is experiencing a revival thanks to the dynamism of subcontractors for Hermès,
@LouisVuitton
, or Chanel.
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View of Dresden by moonlight
by 🇳🇴 painter Johan Christian Dahl (1839)
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- the invention of eyeglasses in Italy in the 13th century, which extended the working lives of many precision craftsmen (toolmakers, weavers, metalworkers, etc.)
- the invention of the mechanical clock. The very notion of productivity is a by-product of this invention.
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What the West owe to Greco-Roman Antiquity:
We have received from Greece "the philosophy, the sciences, (...) our conception of history, our confidence placed in reason to decrypt the book of Nature at the same time as to govern political societies" ⤵️🧵(1/9)
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My ideology :)
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A summary of his thesis:
The Church's gradual prohibition of marriage between increasingly distant degrees of kinship removed Westerners from a clannish mentality, allowing the emergence of dynamic, individualistic societies. This led to the rise of the West.
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More good news for the nuclear industry: Orano invests $1.7 billion in its 🇫🇷 uranium enrichment plant to increase its capacity.
The aim is to produce more to supply nuclear power plants in 🇫🇷, 🇪🇺, 🇰🇷 & 🇺🇸 and no longer rely on external supplies, particularly from 🇷🇺.
Enrichment
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Other examples of this more universal and less clannish mentality: Westerners are more likely than others to trust people outside their group or to give blood (see map and diagram below).
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stands as a nation in itself, whose culture, language, and civilization are like no other, and which draws its strength from its specificity," explains the historian. While "the right to difference" has become a cardinal value in the West, Japan places social cohesion above all.
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Louis Vuitton is doing the same: the company has opened 4 leather goods factories since 2018, mainly in small towns in central France. Each leather goods factory employs around 250 artisans.
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@LaughAlchemy
Exactly.
"we have received from Rome “the bases of our law and the practices of our justice, the conception of our States and the model of our administrations, most of our languages: with them, the way we think etc.."
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This confirms what the historian 🇯🇵 Miho Matsunuma explained to me: "the Japanese fundamentally believe that they form a unique and different people, and that their language and culture will remain impenetrable to foreigners."
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This graph shows the number of births of important scientists (per million inhabitants) in Western Europe and the Middle East.
Between 1000 and 1300, Europe and the Middle East have identical curves. Everything changed around 1300: the European scientific boom began.
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"The Japanese seem to like themselves a lot better than we do, or at least put up with themselves".
New article on Why the West (link in bio) about Lessons from Japan, a book by French Historian JM Bouissou.
Despite a declining population and numerous internal challenges, 🇯🇵
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@archeohistories
I recently came across this great map of the Hanseatic league and its main ports and hubs (Gdańsk is Dantzig on this map).
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One example: after Admiral Zeng He began exploring the Indian Ocean in the 15th century, an imperial edict in 1500 forbade anyone, on pain of death, to build a ship of more than 2 masts.
As a result, it was not long before it was the Portuguese who dominated the Asian seas.
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