Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competitive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views, which hold that divergence occurred because Europe possessed superior markets, rationality, science or institutions. It offers instead a groundbreaking rereading of global economic development that ranges from India, Japan and China to Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire and from the textile and coal industries to the roles of science, technology and the state. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
Part II The divergence of Britain | 87 |
Part III The Indian path | 183 |
Notes to the text | 270 |
Bibliography | 324 |
Other editions - View all
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850 Prasannan Parthasarathi No preview available - 2011 |
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850 Prasannan Parthasarathi No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
According advanced regions agriculture areas argued artisans Asian Bayly Bengal Britain Calcutta calicoes Cambridge capital centers chap China Chinese Colonial commercial competition consumption cotton manufacturing cotton textiles decades Delhi demand divergence early nineteenth century early-modern East India Company ecological economic development Economic History eighteenth century England English East India Europe and Asia European evidence expanded export forests France French global growth Gujarat historians Ibid import of Indian Indian cloth Indian subcontinent Industrial Revolution innovation Irfan Habib iron Japan Joel Mokyr knowledge labor Lancashire late eighteenth century linen London Manchester merchants Modern Mokyr Mughal Mughal Empire muslins Mysore North Ottoman Empire policies political population printing production quantities Riello rulers scientific seventeenth and eighteenth ships shortages silk silver skilled Smithian social South India spinning Spinning World steam engines supply technical textiles Tipu Sultan Tirthankar water frame weavers West Africa workers Yangzi delta yarn