ABSTRACT
The single most important achievement of the wider world was the agricultural revolution—the process by which man the hunter, the gatherer, or the fisherman was converted into a producer of food. The domestication of plants was to have radical repercussions in a variety of ways. In many parts of the wider world the knowledge of how to harness water and to use it to maximum advantage was an important agricultural improvement. Most serious disagreement about the primacy of Indian agriculture would probably come from those who argue the case for China. The large agricultural surpluses produced throughout the wider world freed many segments of the populace to engage in nonagrarian specialization. Because Europe has established an overwhelming and continually accelerating technological lead with respect to the wider world, Westerners often assume that this is a situation that has always prevailed. In most instances, the technological advances that accompanied Europe's emergence into the early-modern era had been anticipated elsewhere.
