Societies and Cultures in World History: Vol. B 1100-1800

Societies and Cultures in World History: Volume B, 1300 to 1800

History

Kishlansky, Mark A.

Geary, Patrick

O'Brien, Patricia

Wong, R. Bin

World

Harpercollins College Div

China has reemerged as a powerhouse in the global economy, reviving a classic question in economic history: why did sustained economic growth arise in Europe rather than in China?
Many favor cultural and environmental explanations of the nineteenth-century economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world. This book, the product of over twenty years of research, takes a sharply different tack. It argues that political differences which crystallized well before 1800 were responsible both for China’s early and more recent prosperity and for Europe’s difficulties after the fall of the Roman Empire and during early industrialization.
Rosenthal and Wong show that relative prices matter to how economies evolve; institutions can have a large effect on relative prices; and the spatial scale of polities can affect the choices of institutions in the long run. Their historical perspective on institutional change has surprising implications for understanding modern transformations in China and Europe and for future expectations. It also yields insights in comparative economic history, essential to any larger social science account of modern world history.

Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe

Business & Money

Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent

Economics

Harvard University Press

The assumption still made in much social science research that Europe provides a universal model of development is fundamentally mistaken, according to R. Bin Wong. The solution is not, however, simply to reject Eurocentric norms but to build complementary perspectives, such as a Sinocentric one, to evaluate current understandings of European developments. A genuinely comparative perspective, he argues, will free China from wrong expectations and will allow those working on European problems to recognize the distinct character of Western development.

China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience

Cornell University Press

Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850 (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies) (Volume 60)

Will, Pierre-Étienne

Industries

U OF M CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

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