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Teaching the Great Divergence:
A Review Essay
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Landes, David S. The Wealth and
Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (W. W. Norton
& Company, 1998). 650 pp, $16.95.
Frank, Andre Gunder. Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age
(University of California Press, 1998). 416 pp, $21.95.
Bin Wong, R. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of
European Experience (Cornell University Press, 1998). 327 pp, $21.95.
Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making
of the Modern World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2000). 320
pp, $22.95.
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The last ten years have seen numerous books
and articles published that attempt to answer the question why Europe industrialized,
and eventually modernized, before China. Much of this literature, including
the four books reviewed here, raises important and timely questions about
the historical roots of the global economy and its connection to today's
world. The difficult problem with this important research for the teacher
of world history is trying to figure out how to use it in the classroom.
In looking at these four books, it is probably best to see them as resources
for topics such as early modern trade, the Atlantic System, the Industrial
Revolution, imperialism, twentieth-century China, and modernization in the
developing world. |
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No one looking at the world in 1900 would
question that Britain, the rest of western Europe, and the United States
dominated the world and the global economy. This observation raises the
question of the origins of the dominance. David Landes begins his book by
suggesting that if it was possible to look around the world in 1000, few
people would have guessed that Europe, and particularly Britain, would come
to dominate the world by 1900, but he also points to 1000 as the origins
of Western dominance. The other authors believe that if you looked around
the world in 1800, both Britain and China were in a position to dominate
the world. This is the fundamental difference between Landes and the other
authors. |
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Landes' explanation for the rise of the West
is a simple and traditional one: culture. He argues that between 1000 and
1500 Europe was fragmented, so there was no single political power to limit
the development of European culture. European states were constantly competing
with each other, so Europeans developed a uniquely dynamic culture in which
rulers made decisions that benefited subjects: "Fragmentation gave rise
to competition, and competition favored good care of good subjects" (36).
Landes contrasts a fragmented and progressive Europe with a static Asia
ruled by despotic emperors that exploited subjects for their own benefit.
After 1492, Europeans extended this competition to other parts of the world.
Europeans, because of their dynamic culture, were more willing to experiment
with technology and science, were more driven by the acquisition of profit,
and were fundamentally more willing to experiment and try out new solutions.
Because of these attributes, Landes argues, Europe quickly dominated the
technologically primitive Native Americans and the culturally static and
despotic Asians. |
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Culture is also Landes' explanation for why
Europe and other parts of the world have experienced—and continue
to experience—periods of economic growth, stagnation, or recession.
Within Europe itself, he believes that as soon as any European state lost
some of its cultural dynamism, another more dynamic European state quickly
became dominant. He argues that Early Spanish and Portuguese dominance declined
as these societies became increasingly religiously intolerant, only to be
superseded by the more dynamic Dutch and British. The Dutch then lost their
economic advantage as they became lazy. Landes follows this line of reasoning
through to the industrial era and the present day. Britain industrialized
first because of a variety of institutional factors, but most importantly
because of its dynamic culture and openness to scientific experimentation.
The other parts of the world that soon industrialized (France, Germany,
the United States, and Japan) did so because of their flexibility, cultural
dynamism, and willingness to embrace change and to copy the British model.
Spain, Italy, eastern Europe, and most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America,
which did not rapidly industrialize, were unable to embrace change because
of despotic rulers or some element of cultural stasis or religious intolerance.
Landes develops this basic argument into an explanation of why certain parts
of the world today are rich and certain parts are poor. His advice to the
poor parts of the world is to stop complaining about past injustices, work
harder, and be open to change, which for him means being more European. |
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At 650 pages Landes' book is too long to be
used in high school or college level world history survey courses, but it
could be excerpted easily. He writes in a simple language that students
can easily follow, and he uses engaging anecdotes to set up and support
his arguments. Small excerpts of Landes would also be useful for illustrating
traditional Eurocentric explanations for the rise of the West. His third
and fourth chapters are good summaries of the ideas of European exceptionalism
and of despotic Asian empires. It would also be useful to excerpt parts
of Landes' discussion of the plantation system in the Americas (chapter
eight). He argues that the financial gain from plantations only affected
industrialization by providing extra capital that sped up the process, but
that plantations were not necessary for industrialization. This section
could be used in a class discussion of the connections between slavery,
plantations, and industrialization. |
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After using a selection of Landes in class,
one could present students with the diametrically opposed views of Andre
Gunder Frank in Reorient. Frank's argument is that between 1400 and
1800 a polycentric world economy existed that constantly shaped the actions
of all states. He is also concerned with proving that Europe was not the
center of the world economy in this period. Frank further argues that "the
real world economy/system also cannot be squeezed into the procrustean structure
of Wallerstein's European-centered 'modern world system,' for the globe-encompassing
world economy/system did not have a single center but at most a hierarchy
of centers, probably with China at the top" (328). Europe's participation
in this world economy in 1400 was hampered by its limited ability to manufacture
items that the rest of the world wanted. It was only with the silver wealth
of the Americas that Europeans were able to "buy a ticket on the Asian train"(xxv).
Europeans also used this silver wealth to surpass Asia and dominate the
world economy after 1800, when Asia's position in the world economy began
to decline. Europe's rise and China's decline revolved around economic cycles.
Landes also speculates that following this pattern to the present day suggests
that China will again rise to the top of the world economy. This strictly
economic explanation for the rise of the West is what sets him apart from
Landes' cultural explanations. |
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Reorient is a provocative book that challenges
how we understand the early modern world, but it is difficult to use in
the classroom. The main problem is that Frank frequently refers to work
of other historians and social theorists. Students might have difficulty
separating Frank's rebuttals of these individuals and his digressions about
theoretical implications from his own important arguments about the economic
interconnectedness of the early modern world. More advanced students might
be able to read selections from his conclusion, in which he concisely summarizes
his main arguments. Teachers can best use this book to help them organize
lessons on the structure and extent of trade in the early modern world and
its influence on different regions. |
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Bin Wong's China Transformed differs
substantially from the works of Landes and Frank. Instead of trying to explain
fully how the West surpassed China, he compares the political and economic
developments of China and Europe over the last 1,000 years. He argues that
in the late eighteenth century "China and Europe shared important similarities
of preindustrial economic expansion based on Smithian dynamics. These included
increased rural industries, more productive agricultures, and expanded commercial
networks" (278). The important difference was that western Europe, and especially
Britain, had access to large supplies of coal. Britain escaped from the
constraints of an economy based on organic material by switching to a coal-
and mineral-based economy in the late eighteenth century. Britain then entered
into a period of intensive economic growth in the early nineteenth century.
Although China and Europe were economically similar until 1800, Bin Wong
argues that they were substantially politically different since at least
1000. Europe had competing states. Within each state rulers also competed
with elite groups over their claims on the states and the ruler's ability
"to extract resources and make war" (281). European rulers developed political
and economic policies and institutions that allowed them to maximize their
power given their political constraints. In China, rulers had different
political concerns. Because China was a unified, agrarian empire and elites
had few institutionalized claims on the state, rulers developed policies
and institutions that maintained the existing social order. These political
differences contributed to significant differences in both the economic
and political trajectories of China and Europe after 1800. |
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Unlike Landes, Bin Wong does not make a value
judgment about these differences. Europe's fragmented states were neither
better than a unified empire, nor the cause of European economic growth.
But fragmented states were more able to adapt to economic growth and development.
China's unified empire, on the other hand, was far more efficient in its
ability to tax its people effectively and to provide far more for its people's
material comfort and education than Europe. Bin Wong's symmetric comparisons
deemphasize the traditional Eurocentric understanding of economic and political
modernization and replace it with a more objective understanding of modernization
based on long-term economic, political, and political economic trajectories.
This reorientation allows us to better understand the reasons why Europe
and China modernized economically at different times and why Europe, and
not China, developed democracy. He also uses his more objective understanding
of modernization to analyze and reinterpret the history of twentieth century
China. |
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Of all four books, Bin Wong's book is probably
the least usable in the classroom. His writing is dense and theoretical,
and world history survey students would struggle in trying to understand
his arguments. He also regularly uses concepts such as "Smithian dynamics"
and "Malthusian dangers." It is important that students know these concepts,
and teachers should make it a point to explain them. Yet teachers would
be better served to use Bin Wong's arguments to set up analytical frameworks
for discussing the history of the developing world in the twentieth century
and its process of political and economic modernization. It would also be
possible to set up a lesson on twentieth century China that compares Bin
Wong's interpretation with David Landes' interpretation. |
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Like Landes and Frank, Kenneth Pomeranz's
The Great Divergence attempts to answer the same question about why
Europe industrialized before China, but he uses a theoretical approach similar
to Bin Wong. Pomeranz is interested in comparing economic developments in
Europe and China before 1800, but he does so within a larger world-systems
perspective. In Part One, he primarily focuses his comparisons on the core
regions of England and the Yangzi River Delta, since these regions were
roughly similar in size and development. Pomeranz also includes significant
information from other parts of Europe, China, Japan, and even India where
it helps to clarify distinctions between the core regions. In terms of their
population controls, technological levels, capital accumulation, and functioning
Smithian markets, Pomeranz argues that "the most developed parts of western
Europe seem to have shared crucial economic features' with other densely
populated core areas in Eurasia" (107). The notable divergence is the presence
of large and readily accessible coal deposits in Britain. Pomeranz also
argues that Britain and China were roughly equal in terms of their consumption
of luxury goods, but European states, and especially Britain, were more
aggressive in their tactics of trade. Europe's system of state-sponsored
armed trading allowed it to gain control of the Americas and gain a foothold
in the Asian trade. Pomeranz also argues that both Britain and parts of
China were reaching severe ecological crises in terms of their ability to
support growing populations with limited resources. These Malthusian constraints
led China to encourage settlements in the peripheries of the empire and
emigration to Southeast Asia, and led Britain to colonize the Americas and
to use parts of eastern Europe as source of resources. The different ways
that Britain and China exploited peripheries is important for Pomeranz's
argument. China's periphery only supplied a limited amount of "breathing
room," because eventually the region became densely populated and less dependent
on the core regions of China. In the British case, there were far more available
resources because disease had wiped out the native populations of the Americas.
Europeans in the Americas also set up plantations that only produced sugar,
tobacco, and cotton. Plantations needed to import food and basic necessities
like clothing, which benefited the British textile industry. The high mortality
rate of slaves also ensured a steady demand for them. These conditions generated
large and continuous profits for Britons involved in the Atlantic trade.
Pomeranz argues that none of these factors alone would have led to British
industrialization, but the combined effect of all factors allowed Britain
to industrialize first. |
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Although Pomeranz's book is compelling, it
is written in a dense style similar to China Transformed. Most students
would struggle with the book, but it might be possible to use excerpts from
the conclusions to Parts One and Two and Chapter Six. In these sections,
he summarizes his arguments in a few pages that students might be able to
work through in a class discussion. Teachers can benefit from this book
as a tool for organizing classes on the Industrial Revolution. Pomeranz's
numerous comparisons between Britain and China help highlight some of the
key external causes of the Industrial Revolution. Pomeranz also places the
Industrial Revolution in a global context, and this makes it the most important
of these four books for teachers. Pomeranz is a model of ideal world history
that places historical events in their proper global context. By showing
that Britain's industrialization was dependent on external factors, Pomeranz
also helps us to understand the long term development of the contemporary
global economy. The Great Divergence and the other three books reviewed
here provide teachers with an excellent resource for organizing a world
history survey course whose main theme is the origins of the modern world.
The books present different interpretations of this issue and allow students
to look at world history over the last 1,000 years from a global perspective. |
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| Bram Hubbell
Friends Seminary |
