Authors: Kenneth Pomeranz
ISBN-13: 9780691090108, ISBN-10: 0691090106
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: November 2001
Edition: 1st Edition
"Pomeranz uses that European invention--economics--to overturn Eurocentrism, establishing beyond cavil a New Fact in our world. Never again will Europeans imagine they stood alone in the doorway of economic growth. Pomeranz and his colleagues in the new sinology have reintroduced the Central Kingdom and its stunning historical sources, and Pomeranz has written the one essential book."--Deirdre McClosky, University of Iowa
"Pomeranz uses a mixture of institutional forces and technological/geological luck to explain how an economic and ecological 'tie game' suddenly became a victory for western Europe over China. He combines global imagination with the scientific detail needed to make his points hold firm. The Great Divergence should command widespread respect."--Peter H. Lindert, University of California, Davis
"A truly magisterial effort based on an immense knowledge of the field, a vast amount of reading, and on close and careful analysis, informed by both social science and history."--Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University
"This is an outstanding book, painstaking and devastating in its attack on received wisdom, supported by a wealth of solid evidence and elegant argument."--Jack A. Goldstone, University of California, Davis
Following a line of argument pioneered by Arthur Lewis, the late economics Nobel laureate from Princeton University, Pomeranz shows in The Great Divergence that industrial development depends upon countries overcoming the "land constraint." This means that countries must increase productivity on the land to free labor to work in factories and mines. They need a surplus on the farms to support consumption in the cities, and they also must raise capital to invest in industry.
Acknowledgments | ix | |
Introduction | ||
Comparisons, Connections, and Narratives of European Economic Development | 3 | |
Variations on the Europe-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 1 | A World of Surprising Resemblances | 29 |
1 | 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 | |
2 | 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 Modern World Economy | 107 | |
Part 2 | From New Ethos to New Economy? Consumption, Investment, and Capitalism | 109 |
Introduction | 111 | |
3 | Luxury Consumption and the Rise of Capitalism | 114 |
More and Less Ordinary Luxuries | 114 | |
Everyday Luxuries and Popular Consumption in Early Modern 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 | |
4 | 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 3 | Beyond Smith and Malthus: from Ecological Constraints to Sustained Industrial Growth | 209 |
5 | 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 | |
6 | 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 |