Great Divergence

[erudito]

Modern global economic history generates two great puzzles. First, why and how did the NW Europe and Anglo-America achieve such unparallelled economic take-off (and why was Japan the non-Western society who was most easily able to emulate, and some ways surpass, that achievement)? Second, was the Industrial Revolution the crucial change and why

Comments

Re: What about technology?

[erudito]

Given I think the Scientific Revolution has to get some credence -- Europe's shift from adaptor to inventor civilisation really is quite striking -- I broadly agree. Invention creates new possible forms of capital.

I also think that jurisdictional competition is important more generally. Columbus, after all, went to prince after prince to get support until Queen Isabella eventually said OK. Conversely, once the Ming regime had decided that enough was enough, Zheng He's expeditions were not repeated, despite continuing Chinese seaborne trade in SE Asia (which Pomeranz points to, but really ends up highlighting differences with Europe). Moreover, Pomeranz himself admits that European states, under competitive pressure, put more effort into devising ways of gain wealth from trade. It seems unlikely that competitive pressure did not have wider domestic implications.

And your point also goes to the question of why Europe already dominated so much of the world by 1800.

But that is more about how one thinks about the interaction of technology and institutions. All the key historians writing on this issue think technology is important, it is how to causally place it they disagree on.