Will I love The Great Divergence?

Taking us away from cities, this book will set your eyes on how these cities and their trades fit within a global framework. Kenneth Pomeranz argues that the key was the Americas which allowed Europe to engage in further specialization, and the fortunate location of coal in Britain, the country that started the industrial revolution. This industrial revolution was the key difference that led to the dominance of the West in global affairs.

We all know from our grade school history books that, from the late 15th century, the Europeans took to the sea in droves because they wanted to reach the ‘Chinese market’ via their own routes. Kenneth Pomeranz does not contest this; but he makes two powerful arguments that should require us to revise our history books for this period. First, the West did not so simply best the rest from 1492 – certainly not the Chinese empire. In this brilliant comparative economic history, Pomeranz shows that the Chinese economy remained as vibrant as the Western European ones until the… show more.