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Summary: How the West Won!
Review: This is a classical work of economic history. It seeks to answer the question of why Europe, rather than Asia, gained dominance after 1750. Pomeranz spends much of the book demonstrating that Europe and Asia were developing in parallel until the nineteenth century, when Europe surged ahead. Pomeranz credits Europe's fortunate possession of coal and proximity to the Americas for the West's advance. The Great Divergence is good for Westerners to read because it helps us recognize that there was nothing preordained about our present preeminence.
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Summary: Rich and Provocative Book on Crucial Topic
Review: 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.
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Summary: Great book
Review: This is a really interesting book, loaded with facts and references to back up the argumentation. Of course a general reader interested in the big picture doesn't need quite so many statistics as are put forth in this book, but it should be easy for anyone to follow the main points of the book without getting caught up with the details. And the evidence presented in this book is indeed convincing.
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