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Nah, West started take-off in 11th Century, before Mongol conquests briefly allowed transit of Eurasia. The monk Raoul Glaber wrote: “The whole world were shaking itself free, shrugging off the burden of the past, and cladding itself everywhere in a white mantle of churches.”
The Pope declaring the First Crusade to the Holy Land in 1095 was another marker that the Dark Ages were over and the West was feeling its oats. The great high medieval Age of Gothic Cathedrals began with St. Denis outside of Paris around 1135.
The Mongol Conquests of the 1200s were hugely destructive where they happened, but were good for Western Europe by briefly unifying central Eurasia, allowing Europeans like Marco Polo (1271-1295) to travel safely to China and back with new ideas.
But the West was already headed up before. For example, the construction of Notre Dame cathedral was from 1160 to 1260. Superb Chartres cathedral from 1194 to 1220
The West was already inventing new milling technology, and around 1280 started installing clocks in churches.
The West was already inventing new milling technology, and around 1280 started installing clocks in churches.
Mechanical clocks were what economic historian David Landes calls the mega-invention. They made society more efficient by replacing hurry-up-and-wait rhythms of life before anybody knew exactly what time it was. This mechanical talent led to the giga-invention: the printing press
Arabic-speakers, with their beautiful script optimized for hand-writing, did not take to the printing press. At times, there were as many printing presses in the entire Muslim world as on the remote Spanish colony of Guam (one). This is when the West pulled decisively ahead.
