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The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary
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Abstract: Kenneth Pomeranz is, from the summer of the year 2012, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, but he previously taught at the University of California, Irvine. His main research domain is the history of modern China, although he is also interested in universal and compared history. Of his works we can mention: The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853-1937 (1993) and The World that Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the present (2005, in collaboration with Steven Topik).
The book The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy is an important contribution in the field of economic history due to the fact that it provides a new interpretation to an intensely debated issue: why did the industrial revolution take place for the first time in Western Europe and how can one explain the gap that can be acknowledged between the west of Europe and Eastern Asia with regard to their economic evolutions? The author aims at grasping the differences which appeared in the economic development of Western Europe in comparison to a certain part of Asia (especially China and Japan) by combining the comparative analysis of some local phenomena with a global, integrative approach. His desire is to surpass the “Europe-centred” standpoint that has characterised most of the historical approaches to the problem, by proposing a reciprocal comparison, instead of only seeking the differences between the Asian economies and the European model. |
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