Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion 1400–1700

Carlo M. Cipolla

History / Technology

Cipolla's short, dense argument that guns and sailing ships — not culture or religion — explain why Europe colonized the world rather than the reverse. On Graham's RAQ history list; it models the kind of contrarian, technology-first causal reasoning he applies to startup thinking.