Why Europe?
First, why ask the question? If we don't ask it, we begin with the historical reality, that around 1500 Europe sailed out and began to dominate the globe, to subject and usually to oppress other societies, to believe other cultures inferior to its own (ironically, as it happens, because in contradiction to the great strength of European thought and culture, to be self-critical), and to seek to impose various kinds of hegemony. Faced with that kind of reality and in the absence of asking the question, "Why Europe," the unexpressed answer to the unasked question too often is racist. So we should ask the question.
Answering the question, "Why Europe" involves two levels of analysis.
One level is a substratum, a kind of physical premise that conditions the interactions of human peoples. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1999) presents a dramatic and compelling argument for the ineluctable consequences of geography. The book is subtitled, "The Fates of Human Societies," and though the subtitle seems hopelessly sweeping, I think you will find it mind-boggling as well as convincingly sweeping. Diamond synthesizes a great deal of common knowledge, analyzes and draws inferences from that knowledge, and adds layer upon layer of corroborating details. I have summarized some of his major points at the link, Geography as Premise, but I recommend you buy his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, to understand his argument.
(note: can I have a link on "buy his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel) to Amazon.com)?
From the unalterable facts of geography flow six major consequences that can be seen as reasons for the particular relationship of western Europe to China and Native America. Because of the accidents of geography and climate, the west differs dramatically from China and Native America in a host of ways that it is the business of the entire course to explain. For a start, though, I have listed six areas of stark difference, Six Consequences, that go a long way toward answering the question, Why Europe?