What is the Great Divergence and when did it occur?
The Great Divergence is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and surpassed previously dominant or comparable civilizations such as Qing China, Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, and Tokugawa Japan. Historians disagree on timing: some trace the beginning to the 15th or 16th century, while the California school argues the largest jump happened in the late 18th and 19th centuries with the Industrial Revolution.
Who coined the term Great Divergence?
The term was coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1996 and was later used by economic historian Kenneth Pomeranz in his 2000 book The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. The alternative term "European Miracle" was popularized by Eric Jones in his 1981 book The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia.
Was China economically ahead of Europe before the Great Divergence?
China's economy was the most advanced in the world from around 1100 during the Song dynasty. Paul Bairoch estimated China's GNP per capita in 1800 at $228 in 1960 US dollars, higher than Western Europe's $213 at the time. However, Stephen Broadberry's analysis of silver wages found England already paid roughly three times the wages of the Yangtze Delta by 1600.
How did coal contribute to the Great Divergence?
Britain used more coal than wood even before the Industrial Revolution, giving it a major head start in modern energy production. Kenneth Pomeranz noted that China's largest coal deposits were in the northwest, but the southward population shift between the 12th and 14th centuries moved Chinese industry far from those deposits. China had not begun using coal on a large scale until around 1900, leaving Europe with a substantial lead in energy production throughout the 19th century.
What role did European colonialism play in the Great Divergence?
Economic historians including Paul Bairoch have argued that European colonialism drove deindustrialization across Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. In India, the capital extracted after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 was invested in British industries, and Parliament's 1813 abolition of the East India Company monopoly exposed Indian textile workers to competition from British machines. India served simultaneously as a supplier of raw cotton to British factories and a captive market for British manufactured goods.
Were living standards in 18th century Asia comparable to Europe before the Industrial Revolution?
Several economists have argued they were. Paul Bairoch estimated that in the mid-18th century the average standard of living in Europe was a little lower than in the rest of the world. However, between 1725 and 1825, laborers in Beijing and Delhi could purchase only a subsistence-level basket of goods, while laborers in London and Amsterdam could purchase between four and six times that amount. The substantial rise in Western European living standards only began after 1870 with the arrival of cheap food from the Americas.