The great divergence : China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy

Author(s)

• Pomeranz, Kenneth

Bibliographic Information

The great divergence : China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy

Kenneth Pomeranz

（The Princeton economic history of the Western world）（Princeton paperbacks）

Princeton University Press, c2000

• : pbk

Other Title

The great divergence : Europe, China, and the making of the modern world economy

Note

Bibliography: p. [339]-371

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

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.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION Comparisons, Connections, and Narratives of European Economic Development 3 Variations on the Eurppe-Centered Story: Demography. Ecology, and Accumulation 10 Other Europe-Centered Stories: Markets, Firms, and Institutions 14 Problems with the Europe-Centered Stories 16 Building a More Inclusive Story 17 Comparisons, Connections, and the Structure of the Argument 24 A Note on Geographic Coverage 25 PART ONE: A WORLD OF SURPRISING RESEMBLANCES 29 ONE Europe before Asia? Population, Capital Accumulation, and Technology in Explanations of European Development 31 Agriculture, Transport, and Livestock Capital 32 Living Longer? Living Better? 36 Birthrates 40 Accumulation? 42 What about Technology? 43 TWO Market Economies in Europe and Asia 69 Land Markets and Restrictions on Land Use in China and Western Europe 70 Labor Systems 80 Migration, Markets, and Institutions 82 Markets for Farm Products 86 Rural Industry and Sideline Activities 86 Family Labor in China and Europe: "Involution" and the "Industrious Revolution" 91 Conclusion to Part 1: Multiple Cores and Shared Constraints in the Early Modem World Economy 107 PART TWO: FROM NEW ETHOS TO NEW ECONOMY? CONSUMPTION, INVESTMENT, AND CAPITALISM 109 INTRODUCTION 111 THREE Luxury Consumption and the Rise of Capitalism 114 More and Less Ordinary Luxuries 114 Everyday Luxuries and Popular Consumption in Early Modem Europe and Asia 116 Consumer Durables and the "Objectification of Luxury 127 Exotic Goods and the Velocity of Fashion: Global Conjuncture and the Appearance of Culturally Based Economic Difference 152 Luxury Demand, Social Systems, and Capitalist Firms 162 Visible Hands: Firm Structure, Sociopolitical Structure and "Capitalism" in Europe and Asia 166 Overseas Extraction and Capital Accumulation: The Williams Thesis Revisited 186 The Importance of the Obvious: Luxury Demand, Capitalism, and New World Colonization 189 Interstate Competition, Violence, and State Systems: How They Didn't Matter and How They Did 194 Conclusion to Part 2: The Significance of Similarities and of Differences 206 PART THREE: BEYOND SMITH AND MALTHUS: FROM ECOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS TO SUSTAINED INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 209 FIVE Shared Constraints: Ecological Strain in Western Europe and East Asia 211 Deforestation and Soil Depletion in China: Some Comparisons with Europe 225 Trading for Resources with Old World Peripheries: Common Patterns and Limits of Smithian Solutions to Quasi-Malthusian Problems 242 SIX Abolishing the Land Constraint: The Americas as a New Kind of Periphery 264 Another New World, Another Windfall: Precious Metals 269 Some Measurements of Ecological Relief: Britain in the Age of the Industrial Revolution 274 Comparisons and Calculations: What Do the Numbers Mean? 279 Beyond and Besides the Numbers 281 Into an Industrial World 283 Last Comparisons: Labor Intensity, Resources, and Industrial "Growing Up" 285 Appendix A Comparative Estimates of Land Transport Capacity per Person: Germany and North India, circa 1800 301 Appendix B Estimates of Manure Applied to North China and European Farms in the Late Eighteenth Century, and a Comparison of Resulting Nitrogen Fluxes 303 Appendix C Forest Cover and Fuel-Supply Estimates for France, Lingnan, and a Portion of North China, 1700-1850 307 Appendix D Estimates of "Ghost Acreage" Provided by Various Imports to Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Britain 313 Appendix E Estimates of Earning Power of Rural Textile Workers in the Lower Yangzi Region of China, 1750-1840 316 Appendix F Estimates of Cotton and Silk Production, Lower Yangzi and China as a Whole, 1750 and Later--With Comparisons to United Kingdom, France, and Germany 327 BIBLIOGRAPHY 339 INDEX 373

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA85513914
• ISBN:
  • 9780691090108
• LCCN: 99027681
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Princeton, N.J.
• Pages/Volumes: x, 382 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : HC240
  • DC21 : 337
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Europe -- Economic conditions -- 18th century
  • LCSH : Europe -- Economic conditions -- 19th century
  • LCSH : China -- Economic conditions -- 1644-1912
  • LCSH : Economic development -- History
  • LCSH : Comparative economics
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA27753885
  • BA0032080X