In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as
advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen
dramatically behind--in living standards, technology, and economic
institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize
economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long
divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically
underdeveloped compared to the West? In "The Long Divergence," one
of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and
the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these
long-debated questions.
Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of
the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim
attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism.
Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal
institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in
the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development
by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern
economic life--including private capital accumulation,
corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By
the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be
transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up.
And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and
weak civil societies--all characteristic of the region's economies
today and all legacies of its economic history--will take
generations to overcome.
"The Long Divergence" opens up a frank and honest debate on a
crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the
Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.
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