Topic
Great Divergence
About: Great Divergence is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 298 publications have been published within this topic receiving 13997 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
Book•
1 Jan 2000
TL;DR: Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber as mentioned in this paper, which made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy intensive industries.
Abstract: "The Great Divergence" brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.
2,242 citations
Book•
1 Jan 1995TL;DR: Landes argues that the North-South division is the great drama of our times, and that drama implies tension, passion, conflict and disappointment as well as happy outcomes as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Now that the old division of the world into the two power blocs of East and West has subsided, the great gap in wealth and health that separates North and South remains the single greatest problem and danger facing the world of the Third Millennium. The only challenge of comparable scope and difficulty is the threat of the environmental deterioration, and the two are intimately connected, indeed are one. David Landes argues that the North-South division is the great drama of our times, and that drama implies tension, passion, conflict and disappointment as well as happy outcomes. While Landes does not claim to have all the answers, he offers suggestions - although their impact is dependent upon a radical reappraisal of cultural values. Numerous historical examples are drawn together on global history, economics and the future.
2,215 citations
Book•
9 Apr 2009TL;DR: In this article, Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that in Britain wages were high and capital and energy cheap in comparison to other countries in Europe and Asia.
Abstract: Why did the industrial revolution take place in eighteenth-century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? In this convincing new account Robert Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He shows that in Britain wages were high and capital and energy cheap in comparison to other countries in Europe and Asia. As a result, the breakthrough technologies of the industrial revolution - the steam engine, the cotton mill, and the substitution of coal for wood in metal production - were uniquely profitable to invent and use in Britain. The high wage economy of pre-industrial Britain also fostered industrial development since more people could afford schooling and apprenticeships. It was only when British engineers made these new technologies more cost-effective during the nineteenth century that the industrial revolution would spread around the world.
1,469 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the history of prices and wages in European cities from the fourteenth century to the First World War and show that the divergence in real incomes observed in the mid-nineteenth century was produced between 1500 and 1750 as incomes fell in most European cities but were maintained (not increased) in the economic leaders.
1,258 citations
TL;DR: The origins of industrial capitalism have occupied a central place in the sociological studies of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and these very questions continue to haunt social scientists, albeit in different ways as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Why did modern economic growth start in the West, and not elsewhere? What was it about England that made it home to industrialization? Questions such as these, which surround the origins of industrial capitalism, occupied a central place in the sociological studies of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Even today, these very questions continue to haunt social scientists, albeit in different ways. As Pomeranz explains, older literatures – from the 19th-century classics of social theory to the modernization theory of the 1950s and 1960s – linked Europe’s economic breakthrough to the fact that it embodied within its borders ‘some unique homegrown ingredient of industrial success’ (p. 3). In these earlier studies, the East is depicted as the polar opposite of Europe, and in many ways as inferior to it. Such arguments come in different versions. Some stress demographic variables such as birth rates and life expectancy (indicators of human capital) as an explanation of Europe’s success; others argue that it was the structure of its institutions (i.e. markets for goods and for factors of production) that gave Europe advantage. Yet others find it in the cultural realm – in the ‘rational’ ideas, beliefs and attitudes about capital accumulation, growth or consumption that Europe diverged from the rest of the Old World in the 19th century. In most cases, these studies carry out a fair amount of backward-looking history writing, portraying industrialization as the ‘natural’ working out of various processes at work in pre1800 Europe. Writing history with a backward gaze is a risky business, however. In turning
980 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 7 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2023 | 14 |
| 2022 | 13 |
| 2021 | 13 |
| 2020 | 10 |