When did the balance of power shift to europe?
The monolithic Ottoman Empire was in serious decline by the early 17thC century, or moreover Europe was in the ascendancy. Europe was a myriad of small states fighting and jostling for position, constant competition between social likes drove military, economic, social and technological innovation. Europe also traded in bulk goods, not luxuries, which aided a broad based growth in productivity and urbanism. The Ottomans were quite the opposite; the religion and strong, centralised hierarchy that had made it formidable now became liabilities. A lack of social flexiability and govt. economic centrality, as well as Islamic taboos, stemmed the possibility of economic innovation and the use of financial instruments. The military was bound up in the state and the Empires social strata; change threatened powerful interests therein, so was overlooked even when the need was strikingly apparent. A vast availabilty of manpower and the disunity of Europe, even when imperalled, long masked the Empi
