Historical Context and Theories of Great Divergence:
– The term ‘Great Divergence’ was coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1996.
– Kenneth Pomeranz’s book ‘The Great Divergence’ and Eric Jones’ book ‘The European Miracle’ discuss this phenomenon.
– Scholars dispute the timing of the Great Divergence, with some pointing to the 19th century as a crucial period.
– Various theories, including geography, culture, and colonialism, have been proposed to explain the divergence.
– Disagreements exist over the nomenclature and starting point of the Great Divergence.
Economic Factors and Technological Advances:
– Industrial Revolution in Western Europe overcame constraints like land shortages and soil degradation.
– Technology adoption in Western Eurasia surpassed that in the East during the Great Divergence.
– Use of coal in Western Europe in the mid-19th century gave it an advantage in energy production.
– Developing countries outpaced developed countries in economic growth rates post-1970.
– Factors influencing worker productivity became crucial during the Industrial Revolution.
Regional Comparisons: China, India, Middle East, Japan, and Africa:
– China had a larger population than Europe for the past two millennia.
– India and China were the most productive regions until the 18th century.
– The Middle East was advanced in 1000 but fell behind Western Europe by 1750.
– Japan experienced periods of positive GDP per capita growth but lagged behind Europe.
– Pre-colonial Africa was politically fragmented but home to wealthy empires.
Geographic and Institutional Factors:
– Europe’s geography encouraged political balkanization, fostering the thriving of heterodox ideas.
– Mediterranean Sea encouraged long-distance trade, impacting economic development.
– Europe’s political fragmentation interacted with institutional innovations, such as economic liberty for merchants.
– Fragmented control of trade routes in Europe magnified the effects of political reforms.
– Tropics, germs, and crops affected development through institutions.
Impact of Coal and New World Resources:
– Coal deposits shaped industrial development in Britain.
– Europe’s unique relationship with the New World contributed to the Great Divergence.
– Vast uncultivated land in the Americas supported European economic growth.
– High profits from colonies and the slave trade sustained early European colonization.
– Selling New World goods to Asia, especially silver to China, boosted European profits.
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilizations, eclipsing previously dominant or comparable civilizations from the Middle East and Asia such as Qing China, Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, and Tokugawa Japan, among others.
Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including geography, culture, intelligence, institutions, colonialism, resources, and pure chance. There is disagreement over the nomenclature of the "great" divergence, as a clear point of beginning of a divergence is traditionally held to be the 16th or even the 15th century, with the Commercial Revolution and the origins of mercantilism and capitalism during the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, the rise of the European colonial empires, proto-globalization, the Scientific Revolution, or the Age of Enlightenment. Yet the largest jump in the divergence happened in the late 18th and 19th centuries with the Industrial Revolution and Technological Revolution. For this reason, the "California school" considers only this to be the great divergence.
Technological advances, in areas such as transportation, mining, and agriculture, were embraced to a higher degree in western Eurasia than the east during the Great Divergence. Technology led to increased industrialization and economic complexity in the areas of agriculture, trade, fuel, and resources, further separating east and west. Western Europe's use of coal as an energy substitute for wood in the mid-19th century gave it a major head start in modern energy production. In the twentieth century, the Great Divergence peaked before the First World War and continued until the early 1970s; then, after two decades of indeterminate fluctuations, in the late 1980s it was replaced by the Great Convergence as the majority of developing countries reached economic growth rates significantly higher than those in most developed countries.
