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Notes -
How curious that both of these are Chinese inventions too!
On print, China had a similar revolution of letters in the Early to High Middle Ages, and on cannon, not only did they first discover gunpowder and invent the cannon all the way back in the 12-13th centuries, they kept up with European advances at least until mid-late 17th century*!
So there must be something different here at play that either enabled Europe to dominate the world, and/or incentivised them to, that for one reason or another did not happen in other societies.
*Granted, mostly from importing European technology and specimens, though the Chinese would come up with e.g. composite metal casted cannons that Europeans would adopt. Albrecht Herport, a Dutch soldier fighting on Taiwan (against Ming dynasty remnants) noted that the Chinese “know how to make very effective guns and cannons, so that it’s scarcely possible to find their equal elsewhere” — likely an exaggeration, but indicative that the Chinese were not complete laggards in this regard. The original source is afaik Voyage to Java, Formosa, India and Ceylon (though I might be wrong), and the English translation of that quote is found in Tonio Andrade’s The Gunpowder Age.
Or, something that prevented China from taking complete advantage of their initial lead, which is the standard explanation.
Or both!
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