The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
Few books have had quite the impact on the field of economic history as Kenneth Pomeranz’s “Great Divergence”, and rightly so. The book re-orientates historian’s thinking on the divergence of the East and West by presenting a much clearer understanding of the East. In so doing, it becomes evident that the two were not nearly as far apart as historians supposed. And, as a result, he suggests new and compelling reasons that Europe industrialized first. While Pomeranz’s arguments are stronger in some areas than others, altogether the book is welcome contribution to the field.
Pomeranz begins his work with a methodological dispute, claiming that current historical work on the developments of the West and East is not using like-for-like measurements. When historians are speaking of the “West”, they typically mean simply “Britain”, or perhaps “Northern Europe” at most. Alternatively, when referencing the “East”, historians typically mean broad swaths of rural China and Japan, rather than Asia’s most promising regions such as the Yangzi Delta. Thus, by not comparing the best of both sides, historians have developed an inaccurate picture of the differences between the two.
The first key contribution comes from the book’s comparison of Britain and China in the 17th and 18th centuries, which reveals the two to be very similar in terms of economic development during the period. In terms of life expectancy, Britain only surpassed age 40 in 1750, while Japanese and Chinese laborers were already equal to or ahead of that, to say nothing of the aristocracy. Next after a (very) brief review, the book claims that there is little evidence for greater capital accumulation, productivity or technological advantages in Europe by the early 18th century. While Pomeranz grants that England enjoyed power-creating machines, he argues that this was on par with China’s phenomenal irrigation system and superior stove technology. Additionally, he finds that Britain was not meaningfully more market orientated than China, and in fact, suggests that China could be seen as nearer Adam Smith’s ideal. Ultimately, Pomeranz paints a clear picture of Britain and China as very different, but roughly equally advanced as far up as the mid-18th century.
But this creates a puzzle: If Britain and China were equally developed just before the Industrial Revolution, why did Britain experience industrialization so much sooner? Despite his claims that China and Britain were on par even until 1750, Pomeranz does not dispute that China took until nearly the 20th century to begin industrializing. But, by demonstrating that the two countries were nearly level on virtually all of the key factors that economic historians have previously used to explain the Industrial Revolution, Pomeranz is effectively forced to develop a new explanation for its occurrence.
To resolve this, Pomeranz makes his second great contribution in this book by introducing two new mechanisms for the Industrial Revolution: The proximity to coal, and the “fruits” of the New World. Rather than seeing the Industrial Revolution as laborsaving, Pomeranz argues that it was instead land-saving. In this view, economic progress prior to the Industrial Revolution was closely coupled with the use of additional land. The creation of engines allowed for far more power than wood on a per acre basis, thus freeing Britain from this “land-dependence”. Britain enjoyed this first because its coal was nearer economically developed cities, making it highly likely inventors and scientists would learn to use it first. Additionally, Europe generally benefitted greatly from colonization. This greatly expanded the land it could exploit, and allowed it to do so without paying for labor (in the form of slavery). Effectively then, Pomeranz argues for a completely new view of the cause of the Industrial Revolution, seeing it as the results of proximity to coal and the colonization of the New World, rather than market institutions, technology, or capital accumulation.
Though the book certainly has its flaws, it is difficult to overstate its impact and importance. In terms of weaknesses, one cannot help but feel that Pomeranz was far more interested in discussing his new reasons for the start of the Industrial Revolution than in demonstrating why new reasons were needed. Little new evidence is put forward to support his claims that China and Britain were on equal levels of technology, productivity, and technological accumulation. And, as Pomeranz agrees that the creation of clocks and gun-powder were important stepping stones to steam power, its hard to understand why one should not conclude that Britain with its watches and cannons was not technologically ahead of China and its well-watered crops. Nonetheless, Pomeranz’s identification of problems in the literature, introduction of new historical evidence, and new premises for the Industrial Revolution had deeply added to our historical understanding and been extremely fruitful in generating new work.
