Kenneth Pomeranz, Great Divergence : China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy

Kenneth Pomeranz, Great Divergence : China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2002)

Kenneth Pomeranz suggests that simple comparison is not enough: before the nineteenth century, there were certain similar tendencies in Europe and elsewhere, therefore the approach to a global history should be simultaneously comparative and integrative. Before the 1800s, it is impossible to understand the world in terms of a Europe-centered system (as if after the 1800s it is), since the world was “polycentric… with no dominant center” (4). The key to European dominance was access to overseas colonies, which brought about the Industrial Revolution which, in turned, laid the foundations of the European superiority.

He then attacks Eurocentrists’ models of explanation and suggests to compare the comparable: i.e., not Britain and India, but rather Britain and a part of India similar in size and population. Very mechanistic.

“what happened in the New World was very different from anything in either Europe or Asia” (p. 13) - but why did it happen? He’s dancing from the moment when European states already acquired American colonies: why, then, didn’t Asian countries acquire colonies of their own? Sakhalin in case of Japan, e.g. Alternatively, how does it explain the sharp growth of united Germany, which had no access to overseas colonies? Or Sweden, to say nothing of Switzerland?

The research agenda of Pomerantz seems, to a great degree, be shaped by negative questions: “Why wasn’t England the Yangzi Delta?” or “Why wasn’t the Yangzi Delta England?” (p. 15). There’s much problem in shaping one’s research agenda through negative questions because this position seriously implies our thinking in the way of non-existent realities where England is Yangzi Delta, which is more a domain of mystics, rather than historians. Here, I ally with Wittgenstein who famously ended his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with a phrase “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” While asking negative questions can be, in my opinion, a good way of stimulating one’s thinking, as soon as it creeps into historical narrative, it undermines its credibility. Take, for instance, the following assumption:

“China, Japan, south Asia, and western Europe are treated in terms of both comparisons and connections. In other words, they are treated both as places that were plausible enough sites for fundamental economic transformations that their experiences illuminate the places where such a transformation did occur” (27).

It implies that, say, Japan should have developed into something similar to Western Europe but didn’t due to some reasons which the author then tries to understand. In this way, Pomerantz imposes on Japan a teleological vision of “proper” development, which allows him to claim that it “failed” to do so – to develop properly, as Western Europe did, and from this logical assumption he starts a comparison which becomes the main method of his work.

“the African slave trade” as a crucial difference that gave Europe an upper hand – once again, it worked for England and, perhaps, Spain/Portugal – but didn’t work for France, Germany, the Netherlands and other European nations.

Pomerantz then explores different explanations for European advantages in the 19^th century and refute most of them by claiming that similar trends can be observed in Asian history as well. In doing this, he often loses the historical context in which these seemingly similar trends could actually play very different roles. For example, to argue that Europe had actually no scientific advantage over China he claims:

In many areas, various non-European societies remained ahead. Irrigation, which we have already mentioned, was perhaps the most obvious; and in many other agricultural technologies, too, Europe lagged behind China, India, Japan, and parts of Southeast Asia (45).

Irrigation system, however, compensated for insufficient rains (?) which in Europe were in abundance, hence no sense for Europeans to develop them. Besides, in certain areas however backward Europe could be, but in key sectors: production of weapons and machines in the context, i.e. for expansion through warfare or trade, – it obviously had an upper hand over Asia.

Or: “As late as 1827 and 1842, two separate British observers claimed that Indian bar iron was as good or better than English iron” (45) – so what, if Britain used its worse iron for better machines? This makes argument senseless or, at least, counterfactual.

Once again, he needs to appeal to negative questions to justify his position: “Or had the New World not provided enormous amounts of textile fibers, European precocity in mechanizing spinning and weaving might seem more like interesting curiosities than the centerpiece of a great transformation” (46).

His argument is, actually, plagued by negative questions and assertions: “So rather than search for reasons why Chinese science and technology “stagnated” in general— which they did not do— we need to look at why the paths on which they continued to progress did not revolutionize the Chinese economy” (48).

“Moreover, English textile innovations could easily also have become footnotes to history rather than major milestones” (54) – Columbus could have died on his way to the New World; Indians could have crushed Jamestown; France could have won the Seven-Year War. This doesn’t make these statements appropriate historical arguments. Try to convince an evolutionary biologist use an argument “what if dinosaurs did not become extinct 65 million years ago.”

Another thing – the question of criteria. On p. 80, he discusses the role of free labour in stimulating economic growth.

In whole, the argumentation related to the European history seems to far-fetched to be accepted as convincing. This undermines the entire comparative project.