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Norbert Csizmadia
20/06/2023 06:47
His research has shown that the course of history has varied along each latitude, meaning that the cause of development is primarily geographical, rather than cultural, religious, political or genetic. Geographical factors also explain why the West has dominated the world for the past 500 years. Although the West lost its leading role for a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire, it rose again in the 1500s.
Due to its east-west orientation, the Eurasian continent lies in one of the "lucky latitudes", i.e. in climatic zones with good conditions for agriculture and grazing. This "lucky zone" stretches from southern Europe to southern China. Like Ian Morris, Jared Diamond also points out the significance of Eurasia in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Arnold J. Toynbee, in his "A Study of History", identifies the basic patterns of the emergence of civilisations as patterns of interaction. He examined the rise and fall of 28 civilisations over the course of history, and concluded that “they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders” and that civilisations follow cycles and that the study of history was based on commercial and scientific observation". Of the four remaining civilisations of the 21st century, two are of paramount importance: the Western and the Far Eastern civilisations. According to Toynbee, these either interlink or Western civilisation will be abandoned and will decline.
In the 20th century, the spatial structure of the world’s economy seemed "relatively simple", dividing the world into two parts: the "developed" global North and the "underdeveloped" global South. Based on the report by (former German chancellor) Willy Brandt, the so-called "Brandt Line" showed the North-South economic divide in the 1980s. The countries north of the line were the “developed” countries and the countries south of the line were the “underdeveloped” countries, and the line bisected the world at a latitude of approximately 30° north. While 40 years ago the “developed” world of the north was home to a quarter of the world's population and accounted for 80 per cent of the world's GDP, the “undeveloped” south was home to three quarters of the world's population and generated 20 per cent of the global GDP. The Brandt Line had a major impact on the overall geopolitical and economic geography thinking of the 20th century.
In 2013, Thomas L. Friedman had already said that “there is no point in talking about developed or underdeveloped countries, but about those that capture people's imagination and those that do not". Meanwhile, our world has moved from a single-centred to a multi-centred (multipolar) world order. From around the turn of the millennium, continuous development has blurred this line and it is no longer accurate. Hans Rosling, in his world-famous book Factfulness, argues that if you look at statistics, there are now only 13 developing countries. China, for example, was one of the underdeveloped countries in the 1980s, but has now become the world's number one economic power. Geographical locations are becoming increasingly valued and are in constant competition with each other.
The author is geographer and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pallas Athene Domus Meriti Foundation and the John von Neumann University Foundation