1) While Asia experienced long periods of unification under empire, Europe was more often divided due to war. 2) Europe had access to coal reserves and land in the Americas, giving it geographic advantages for industry, while Asia lacked these advantages. 3) These differences in political fragmentation and access to resources affected the development of industry, allowing it to take hold earlier in Europe through capital-intensive methods of production driven by conflict, while Asia's prosperity came from large-scale markets and division of labor under unified empires until later.