The American economic and technology historian David S. Landes (1924-2013) highlighted the critical role that "culture" plays in economic developments through his work.

With his essay Why Europe and the West? Why Not China?, Landes raises the question of why Europe became a global power, while not only were the technological prerequisites present in imperial China, but in many fields they were ahead chronologically, emphasizing the dismay of sinologists in answering it.

This question becomes particularly interesting not only from the perspective of past history but also from the perspective of present history, as a decade after the capitalist crisis that broke out in the West, the center of global history seems to be shifting towards China.

However, from a non-Eurocentric perspective, it appears that China is shifting towards the West, causing, as Foucault wrote, “our millennial practice of the Same and the Other to sway and worry for a long time.” Perhaps there is no better moment to ask the question: Why Europe and the West? Why not China?

“One of the great mysteries of Chinese history is why China did not produce internally the kind of scientific and industrial revolutions that granted Europe dominance over time. A thousand years ago, the Chinese were far ahead of everyone else, especially the Europeans. Some would argue that this superiority lasted for several centuries. So why did China 'fail'?”