A landmark comparative history of Europe and China that examines why the Industrial Revolution emerged in the West The Great Divergence sheds light on one of the great questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe? Historian Kenneth Pomeranz shows that as recently as 1750, life expectancy, consumption, and product and factor markets were comparable in Europe and East Asia. Moreover, key regions in China and Japan were no worse off ecologically than those in Western Europe, with each region facing corresponding shortages of land-intensive products. Pomeranz's comparative lens reveals the two critical factors resulting in Europe's nineteenth-century divergence-the fortunate location of coal and access to trade with the New World. As East Asia's economy stagnated, Europe narrowly escaped the same fate largely due to favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas. This Princeton Classics edition includes a preface from the author and makes a powerful historical work available to new readers.

The World That Trade Created brings to life the history of trade and its actors. In a series of brief, highly readable vignettes, filled with insights and amazing facts about things we tend to take for granted, the authors uncover the deep historical roots of economic globalization. Covering over seven hundred years of history, this book, now in its fourth edition, takes the reader around the world from the history of the opium trade to pirates, to the building of corporations and migration to the New World. The chapters are grouped thematically, each featuring an introductory essay designed to synthesize and elaborate on key themes, both familiar and unfamiliar. It includes ten new essays, on topics ranging from the early modern ivory and slave trades across the Indian Ocean, to the ways in which the availability of new consumer goods helped change work habits in both Europe and East Asia, and from the history of chewing gum to that of rare earth metals. The introductory essays for each chapter, the overall introduction and epilogue, and several of the essays have also been revised and updated. The World That Trade Created continues to be a key resource for anyone teaching world history, world civilization, and the history of international trade.

Examining the domestic politics of imperial expansion these essays question the role of the Industrial Revolution and British imperial leadership beyond the issue of hierarchy and The Great Divergence. This volume brings together leading global economic historians to honour Patrick O'Brien's contribution to the establishment of global economic history as a coherent and respected field in the academy. Inspired by O'Brien's seminal work on the British Industrial Revolution as a global phenomenon, these essays expand the role of the Industrial Revolution and British imperial leadership beyond the issue of hierarchy and The Great Divergence. The change from the protective Atlantic empire, 1650-1850, to the free trade empire of the last half of the long nineteenth century is elaborated as are the conscious efforts of the free trade empire to develop markets and market economies in Africa. British domestic politics associated with the change and the continuation to the recent politics of Brexit are fascinatingly narrated and documented, including the economic rationale for imperial expansion, in the first instance. The narrative continues to the crises of globalization caused by the world wars and the Great Depression, which forced the free trade British Empire to change course. Further, the effects of the crises and the imperial reaction on the East African colonies and on New Zealand and Australia are examined. Given current concerns about the environmental impact of economic activities, it is noteworthy that this volume includes the environmental impact of globalization in India caused by the free trade policy of the British free trade empire.

Written for high school or beginning undergraduate students, this four-volume reference valiantly attempts to provide a historical framework for the perhaps overly broad concept of world trade. Entry topics were selected on trade organizations, influential people, commodities, events that affected trade, trade routes, navigation, religion, communic

The World That Trade Created brings to life the history of trade and its actors. In a series of brief, highly readable vignettes, filled with insights and amazing facts about things we tend to take for granted, the authors uncover the deep historical roots of economic globalization. Covering over seven hundred years of history, this book, now in its fourth edition, takes the reader around the world from the history of the opium trade to pirates, to the building of corporations and migration to the New World. The chapters are grouped thematically, each featuring an introductory essay designed to synthesize and elaborate on key themes, both familiar and unfamiliar. It includes ten new essays, on topics ranging from the early modern ivory and slave trades across the Indian Ocean, to the ways in which the availability of new consumer goods helped change work habits in both Europe and East Asia, and from the history of chewing gum to that of rare earth metals. The introductory essays for each chapter, the overall introduction and epilogue, and several of the essays have also been revised and updated. The World That Trade Created continues to be a key resource for anyone teaching world history, world civilization, and the history of international trade.

"The Great Divergence" brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.

Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.

Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.

Since 1750, the world has become ever more connected, with processes of production and destruction no longer limited by land- or water-based modes of transport and communication. Volume 7 of the Cambridge World History series, divided into two books, offers a variety of angles of vision on the increasingly interconnected history of humankind. The first book examines structures, spaces, and processes within which and through which the modern world was created, including the environment, energy, technology, population, disease, law, industrialization, imperialism, decolonization, nationalism, and socialism, along with key world regions.

Since 1750, the world has become ever more connected, with processes of production and destruction no longer limited by land- or water-based modes of transport and communication. Volume 7 of the Cambridge World History series, divided into two books, offers a variety of angles of vision on the increasingly interconnected history of humankind. The second book questions the extent to which the transformations of the modern world have been shared, focusing on social developments such as urbanization, migration, and changes in family and sexuality; cultural connections through religion, science, music, and sport; ligaments of globalization including rubber, drugs, and the automobile; and moments of particular importance from the Atlantic Revolutions to 1989.

Since around 1500 C.E., humans have shaped the global environment in ways that were previously unimaginable. Bringing together leading environmental historians and world historians, this book offers an overview of global environmental history throughout this remarkable 500-year period. In eleven essays, the contributors examine the connections between environmental change and other major topics of early modern and modern world history: population growth, commercialization, imperialism, industrialization, the fossil fuel revolution, and more. Rather than attributing environmental change largely to European science, technology, and capitalism, the essays illuminate a series of culturally distinctive, yet often parallel developments arising in many parts of the world, leading to intensified exploitation of land and water. The wide range of regional studies - including some in Russia, China, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Southern Africa, and Western Europe - together with the book's broader thematic essays makes "The Environment and World History" ideal for courses that seek to incorporate the environment and environmental change more fully into a truly integrative understanding of world history. The contributors include Michael Adas, William Beinart, Edmund Burke-III, Mark Cioc, Kenneth Pomeranz, Mahesh Rangarajan, John F. Richards, Lise Sedrez, and Douglas R. Weiner.

This wholly original reassessment of critical issues in modern Chinese history traces social, economic, and ecological change in inland North China during the late Qing dynasty and the Republic. Using many new sources, Kenneth Pomeranz argues that the development of certain regions entailed the systematic underdevelopment of other regions. He maps changes in local finance, farming, transportation, taxation, and popular protest, and analyzes the consequences for different classes, sub-regions, and genders.
Pomeranz attributes these diverse developments to several causes: the growing but incomplete integration of North China into the world economy, the state's abandonment of many hinterland areas and traditional functions, and the effect of local social structures on these processes. He shows that hinterlands were "made," not merely found, and were powerfully shaped by the strategies of local groups as well as outside forces.

Since 1750, the world has become ever more connected, with processes of production and destruction no longer limited by land- or water-based modes of transport and communication. Volume 7 of the Cambridge World History series, divided into two books, offers a variety of angles of vision on the increasingly interconnected history of humankind. The first book examines structures, spaces, and processes within which and through which the modern world was created, including the environment, energy, technology, population, disease, law, industrialization, imperialism, decolonization, nationalism, and socialism, along with key world regions.

Since 1750, the world has become ever more connected, with processes of production and destruction no longer limited by land- or water-based modes of transport and communication. Volume 7 of the Cambridge World History series, divided into two books, offers a variety of angles of vision on the increasingly interconnected history of humankind. The second book questions the extent to which the transformations of the modern world have been shared, focusing on social developments such as urbanization, migration, and changes in family and sexuality; cultural connections through religion, science, music, and sport; ligaments of globalization including rubber, drugs, and the automobile; and moments of particular importance from the Atlantic Revolutions to 1989.