Published 2011
| public
Book
Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe
- Creators
- Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent
- Wong, Roy Bin
Abstract
[Introduction] In the past three decades scholars have reconsidered what set Europe off from the rest of the world as the site of state formation and economic changes that led to modern nation-states and industrialized economies. The themes, of course, are far older. They recur in the inquiries of great social thinkers from Montesquieu and Adam Smith to Karl Marx and Max Weber. Europe's, particularly England's, success moved scholars to assess other societies from a European benchmark. Quite diverse social science scholarship presumed that there was a unique and European-defined path to modernization and prosperity. But in the 1980s doubts about...
Additional Information
Copyright © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. This book is the result of a conversation begun more than two decades ago in a class organized by James Z. Lee. It was sustained by the community of scholars in California and, in particular, those of the All-UC group in Economic History, who heard and commented on draft versions of many chapters. Actual writing was spurred by classes we taught together at UCIrvine and UCLA. The Paris School of Economics hosted a one-day conference on China and Europe, where we presented the last two chapters for the first time. The final version was much improved by a conference organized by the UCLA Center for Economic History in May 2009. Robert Allen, Steve Haber, James Robinson, and Ross Thomson deserve particular thanks for their comments that day. Dan Bogart, Oscar Gelderblom, Philip Hoffman, Naomi Lamoreaux, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Howard Rosenthal took the time to read and comment on the entire manuscript. Timothy Guinnane and Kenneth Pomeranz, who read the manuscript for Harvard University Press, were exacting and extremely helpful readers. Michael Aronson and Heather Hughes at Harvard University Press, Melody Negron at Westchester Book Services, and Charles Eberline improved the book through a simple, speedy, and smooth production process. Sabrina Boschetti stepped into the breach at the last minute to help compile the references. Paula Scott kindly read and edited the manuscript. If our voices have blended into one, she is to be thanked.Additional details
- Alternative title
- Before and Beyond Divergence: Institutions and Prosperity in China and Europe Before 1000-1800
- Eprint ID
- 65580
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160322-093727842
- Created
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2016-03-22Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field