The Great Divergence: China And Pre-Colonial China

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There has been much scholarly debate in the last thirty years examining why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe as opposed to the great agrarian empires of Asia. Pomeranz’s book ‘The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the making of a modern world economy’, influenced the work of Rosenthal/ Wong and Parthasarathi who share Pomeranz’s deeply held belief that Europe was not fundamentally different from Asia in the late middle ages. Pomeranz while not the first to present this view built upon the work done by Frank Perlin in ‘Proto-Industrialization And Pre-Colonial South Asia.’ This essay firstly looks at the classical understanding of the great divergence in an attempt to highlight the modifications and influences of Pomeranz. Then …show more content…
Pomeranz moreover sought to break away from Eurocentric Weberian analysis by employing R. Bin Wong’s ‘reciprocal’ comparison. This method of comparison allows him to see both Britain and the Yangzi Delta as deviation when seen from the side of another, therefore neither is considered normal. He then ‘looks of absences, accidents and obstacles that diverted England from a path that might have made it more like the Yangzi Delta…’ as well as using the method of looking at why non-European areas failed to …show more content…
He also countered the claims of the classical Marxists that Europe was ahead in economic and political institutions showing that property rights and market activity was very similar. Furthermore his research did not show any real difference in the availability and productivity of human and physical capital. Pomeranz theorises that Asian markets were efficient in the allocation of resources and had sophisticated market systems, leading him to the conclusion that in terms of economies and markets there was not a great differentiation between east and west. After his refutations of the classical understanding Pomeranz looks to explain the causes of the great
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