Reorganization

Dear friends,
A reorganisation of independent and centralised European states competed for empire abroad and fought each in their home continent, in almost continual and ever more costly and complicated ways that required rapid advances in military technology – advances which at the same time gave the European powers superiority over the peoples they colonised in America, Asia and Africa.
(book THE AGE OF GENIUS author A. C. Grayling)
I think the subject of this sentence is reorganization, and the main verbs are competed and fought. But how can a reorganization compete and fight?
Thank you very much.

Perhaps the idea is meant to be "a newly reorganized network of independent etc." I agree that the original is a bit odd.

It looks to me as though there are some words missing. "... and fought each" is odd too.

(cross-posted)

You can read an excerpt of the book here: Amazon.com: The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind eBook : Grayling, A. C.: Kindle Store , "3 The Origins of the Wars". It's about the situation in Europe during and after the Thirty Years War. I think the reorganisation is about the shifting political alliances at the time.

As it stands, the passage quoted is nonsense. 'A reorganisation of independent and centralised European states competed for empire abroad and fought each in their home continent' - what on earth can this mean? -each in their home continent? But they are all European states - each has the same home continent, Europe.

I suggest that the intended meaning is that they "fought each other". Naturally that was in their shared home continent. Wars between countries in Europe have happened often since the 17th century. Indeed, there's one happening now.

Andygc said:

I suggest that the intended meaning is that they "fought each other"

Yes; my point was that the text which is quoted from is riddled with errors like this; since it's difficult to believe that Professor Grayling was responsible for all these, the conclusion has to be that the version used is very unreliable.

The version found on Google Books seems the same.

lentulax said:

...in their home continent...

In Europe. With too many different changes, not just regarding borders.

Andygc said:

"fought each other"

But also WITH other ones. For example, two together against to another. Therefore suitable for:

fought each in

.

Myridon said:

The version found on Google Books seems the same.

So maybe I was too quick to defend Professor Grayling! There's an error as early as the first paragraph of this work - in fact, the first paragraph of the Author's Note which precedes the work itself, where we read ‘it [the author’s claim] is that this period saw the greatest change in the mind of humanity than [sic] had occurred in all history beforehand’ [author’s italics]. Apart from the initial point made by lekal, whose bewilderment is entirely justified, and the 'each in their home continent' business, the extract quoted also includes 'in almost continual ... ways' - what ways are these? Of course, in speech we all embark on sentences which don't work out quite as we intended, but it is astonishing that in an academic work neither the author nor his editor has corrected such sentences. It looks as though if lekal wants to continue to enjoy Grayling's erudition, energy and enthusiasm, he (or she) will have to be prepared to find more examples of similar carelessness in expression.