The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. |
Buy The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. here, one of 750 Greenland History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 75666 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Greenland History > Item 54
 |
The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.
|
by Kenneth Pomeranz
Sales Rank: 39851
|
Discount: 6 %
$12.75
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 392 pages
Published by: Princeton University PressEdition: Revised Edition December 3, 2001
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0691090106
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0691090108
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 5.9 x 1 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
From Booklist
Pomeranz is a history professor at the University of California^-Irvine and the author of The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853^-1937 (1993), an academic study that investigated the role of steam-powered transportation (among other developments) in the growth of China's Shantung Province. He is also the coauthor of the more popularly accessible The World That Trade Created (1999). Now he looks at the question of why sustained industrial growth began in northwestern Europe but not East Asia. To even ask the question can bring charges of Eurocentrism, but Pomeranz acknowledges the role of colonialism in Europe's growth. He emphasizes, though, Europe's access to America's resources as one of two contributing factors to industrial growth, the second being the widespread availability within Europe of coal as a fuel. After challenging the convention that Europe held an edge before 1800, he traces with scholarly diligence the diverging patterns of growth between Europe and China. David Rouse
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Choice
Pomeranz's study is an important addition to the literature that challenges elements of every major interpretation of the European take-off.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. (Paperback)
This is a provocative book in the best sense; it addresses an important subject, is well argued, is based on an excellent scholarship, and reaches conclusions that will stimulate a great deal of debate. Pomeranz seeks to explain how Western European Societies made the leap into industrialization and world domination. Pomeranz begins by rebutting prior explanations of European success. Most versions of these models, which were reasonable proposals given prior fragmentary knowledge of Asian history, are demographic or economic in nature. Europeans had lower birth-rates, Europeans were the first to develop free markets, consumption of key luxury goods was higher and primed the pump for international trade, Early Modern Europe underwent proto-industrialization as handicraft production for trade spread into the countryside, labor was freer in Europe. Pomeranz, an accomplished specialist on Chinese history, demonstrates that there was little difference in all these important variables between China, Japan, and Western Europe. Indeed, in some respects, 18th century China may have had freer labor and markets than 18th century Europe. Pomeranz takes particular pains to attack the triumphalist notion that "free markets" lead inexorably to modernization. For Pomeranz, European capitalism is a key to development of industrialization but only a very particular form of capitalism unique to Europe. This is the state sponsored or directed capitalism that drove overseas expansion. This peculiar form of capitalism, not the untrammeled free market, became the key to European imperialism and colonialism, and the development of key capitalist institutions such as joint stock companies. Also, the success of this peculiar capitalism was contingent on a series of external factors beyond European control; access to coerced labor made possible by the existence of slavery in Africa, conquest of the Western Hemisphere made possible by the epidemiologic advantages of Europeans, and the establishment of transglobal trading networks created by the thirst of China for American silver. The uniquely and specfically European feature is the existence of state sponsored/directed overseas expansion. This in turn is seen as a function of dynastic/nascent state competition within Europe, a factor absent in China. The actual beginning of industrialization is attributed to the lucky availability of accessible coal mining in Britain and the need for better water pumps leading to the application of steam technology. From the starting point that China, Japan, and Western Europe were economically equivalent in the 18th century, Pomeranz develops a very interesting model of normative development. He sees China and Japan as preceding along the most likely lines of development; increased population growth leading to tremendous pressure on land and other resources like timber availabilty, economic stagnation, intensification of labor to maintain food productivity, and decay of proto-industrialization. Western Europe escaped this fate by the lucky series of events sketched above. Pomeranz presents a set of interesting examples to buttress his hypotheses. For example, Denmark, a major loser in 17th century wars and a failure in overseas trade, followed a path similar to that seen in Japan and China. The Chinese state, both under the Ming adn Qing, was expansionist but expansion was directed west into Asia and the result was reproduction of existing zones of economic activity, not the highly specialized colonial-core structure developed by the Atlantic economy. There are some significant deficiencies in this book. One is rhetorical; at no point does Pomeranz specifically and explicitly differentiate between necessary and sufficient causes. The reader is left to infer Pomeranz's view of what factors are sufficient (individually, none), what is necessary, and what has to be combined in order to produce a Europe. Another defect is that the book reflects clearly Pomeranz's training as a China specialist. Simply put, despite an impressive amount of reading, he is not nearly as knowledgeable about Europe. There is a lot less detail about Europe. Partly, this is because he takes a lot of effort to demonstrate the equivalence of China, Japan, and Western Europe in key areas. But, as he acknowledges at the beginning of the book, Western Europe must have had unique features that made it possible of European societies to seize the opportunities presented. Expansionist capitalism is one but the genesis of this institution is not really explored. I suspect also that he underestimates considerably the importance of the European scientific and technological tradition. Finally, in a book that emphasizes the fortunate contingencies that led to European success, he overlooks a really obvious fact of geography. The Atlantic is a much narrower ocean than the Pacific and the Western Hemisphere was more easily available to Europe. A really stimulating book. Not the last word but the first major installment in a major research program.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.
Available from Amazon
Price: $12.75
Updated on 6-21-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. and other related Greenland History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Greenland History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
