143 Journal of World History, Vol. 10, No. 1 ©1999 by University of Hawai‘i Press The Military Superiority Thesis and the Ascendancy of Western Eurasia in the World System* william r. thompson Indiana University ne of the more intriguing historical and theoretical questions is how it was possible for an area often considered, rightly or wrongly, to be a peripheral backwater, such as western Eurasia, to ascend to a predominant position over the rest of the world between roughly 1500 and 1900. One succinct answer is suggested by Geoffrey Parker: “[The] . . . sustained preoccupation of European states with fighting each other by land and sea had at length paid handsome dividends. Thanks above all to their military superiority, founded upon the military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Western nations had managed to create the first global hegemony in History.” 1 The answer is extremely parsimonious. The West was able to conquer the rest of the world thanks primarily to its edge in military technology. This edge had begun to emerge as early as the sixteenth century as a result of the intensive warring propensities of the region. The appeal of such an apparently simple explanation is undeniable—even though Parker’s explanation is actually less simple than it appears at first blush. More- over, the evident appeal is bolstered by the fact that Western actors often did enjoy—sometimes in ways that were demonstrated quite dramatically—various forms of military superiority over non-European *I am indebted for critical comments to Jeremy Black, George Modelski, and two anonymous reviewers. 1 Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 154. O