Geography Education

As a global region, Europe has the great amount of wealth and sustained growth over the last 500 years.  Geographically and historically, are there reasons for this or is this just an accident historical geography?  This essay by an economics and history professor delves into the political, economic, intellectual, geographic, and technological setting within which European economic ascendance took place.  Some key geographic concepts played a huge role in explaining why Europe today was able to grow so drastically during the Great Enrichment (the diffusion of ideas across borders, vibrant competition within intellectual marketplaces, applied technological innovations built upon previous scientific scholarship, etc.)