Great Divergence was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result June 23, 2010 Good article nominee Not listed

This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

History Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Economics Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. History This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Europe This article is within the scope of WikiProject Europe, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to European topics of a cross-border nature on Wikipedia.EuropeWikipedia:WikiProject EuropeTemplate:WikiProject EuropeEurope ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 30 days are automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 4.

Several sources cite "Huntington 1996" as the origin of the phrase. The only work Huntington seems to have written in that year is the Clash of civilizations, and the term does not appear in that book. Can anyone track down another reference to Huntington? Otherwise, this article and the book that its cites appear to be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xenomorphologist (talk • contribs) 17:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gunder Frank gives no reference; I could find no reliable source, other than blogs, which may well be sourced from this article, and like Xenomorphologist could find "great divergence" in neither Huntington's 1993 article or 1997 Clash of Civilizations here. Therefore, since the phrase was at the very least popularized by Pomweranz and very likely coined by him, I changed the lead sentence to reflect this.ch (talk) 05:23, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits are mostly in conflict with mainstream research by a a number of leading authorities.Phmoreno (talk) 17:00, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify which edits? It's difficult to check the sourcing in the recent edits, which mostly cover the Ottoman Empire and India. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:15, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I looked over some of the recent edits, which yes, were problematic. I made some changes to the text in the main body. I also re-wrote the lede. What do you think? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:11, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "mainstream research" you're referring to is outdated. Recent scholarship points to per-capita income in China and India being on-par with Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution. Maestro2016 (talk) 19:53, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "older" and "recent" scholarship should be the other way around. According to Broadberry, the older "traditionalist" position is that Europe had an income lead before the Industrial Revolution, while the recent "revisionist" position is that China and/or India were either on-par with, or had an income lead, before the Industrial Revolution. Scholars such as Broadberry and Maddison support the older "traditionalist" position, while scholars such as Pomeranz, Parthasarathi and Bairoch support the recent "revisionist" position. Maestro2016 (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added the slew of recent articles and papers showing that the Great Divergence occurred earlier. These are the most recent estimates in the economic history as far as I know, and as certainly far newer than Pomeranz 2000 and Bairoch 1993 (Hobson is not an economist historian, and this is not his expertise). The "recent" / "older" descriptions are therefore reasonable. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Two of those references are Broadberry, who himself acknowledges in recent papers that his position is the "traditional view", whereas the position of those he opposes (e.g. Pomeranz, Parthasarathi, Hanley, etc.) are the "revisionist view". And it's also worth noting that the "revisionist view" scholars have published responses to the "traditional view" scholars challenging them, such as Parthasarathi's critical response to Broadberry. It's an on-going debate, with scholars from both schools going back-and-forth. I believe it would be better to characterize the debate in terms of how Broadberry characterizes it, the "traditional view" and the "revisionist view". Maestro2016 (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The terms "traditional" and "revisionist" do seem accurate, and there does seem to be an active debate between those two schools. However, I encourage you to find more up-to-date sources. I will edit again. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:11, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some more recent sources generally supporting a 19th-century Great Divergence viewpoint:

• Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
• Andre Gunder Frank, Robert A. Denemark (2015). Reorienting the 19th Century: Global Economy in the Continuing Asian Age. Routledge.
• Kenneth Pomeranz (2011), Ten Years After: Responses and Reconsiderations
• Sashi Sivramkrishna (2009), Ascertaining Living Standards in Erstwhile Mysore, Southern India, from Francis Buchanan's Journey of 1800-01: An Empirical Contribution to the Great Divergence Debate
• Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev (2015), Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective
• Andrey Korotayev, Jonas J. Nazimoff Shaende, Jack A. Goldstone (2014), Global Population Dynamics Drive the Phases of the Great Divergence and Convergence{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Also, there doesn't seem to be any "consensus view" at this point. It should be referred to as the "traditional view", as Broadberry himself describes it. Also, there are "economic historians" and "world historians" in both camps, so I think it would make more sense to refer to both camps as simply scholars or historians. Maestro2016 (talk) 11:39, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Per my reading of the sources, the sources seem to distinguish between economic historians and world historians when it comes to timing the Great Divergence. If you can find reliable sources that contradict that, I'd of course reconsider. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:52, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some sources that specifically refer to the "California School" as "economic historians":

• Niv Horesh (2009), What Time Is the "Great Divergence"? And Why Economic Historians Think It Matters
• Bertram Schefold [in German] (2016), Great Economic Thinkers from Antiquity to the Historical School: Translations from the Series Klassiker Der Nationalökonomie, Routledge, p. 13
• A 2013 paper from Broadberry ("Accounting for the great divergence") which states: "This chimed with the work of Frank (1998) and other economic historians working in California, and became known as the California School."

Maestro2016 (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This type of information does not contribute to the article.

While steam power had been experimented with in Ottoman Egypt by engineer Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in 1551, when he invented a steam jack driven by a rudimentary steam turbine,^[1] it was under Muhammad Ali of Egypt

The mechanics of the period had no technology to produce a practical piston engine and certainly not an industrial turbine. One only needs to read Watt's account of the trouble he had getting a cylinder bored. Regardless, Egypt never produced practical steam engines before Newcomen.Phmoreno (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To say the least:

"This is what set Europe apart from the technologically advanced, large unitary empires such as China and India. China had both a printing press and movable type, and India had similar levels scientific and technological achievement as Europe in 1700, yet the industrial revolution would occur in Europe, not China or India."

(in the "Political fragmentation" part)

First, India has generally been rather divided despite short periods during which a dominant power rose (and fell), such as the Mughal empire which fell at the beginning of the 18th century (India was largely divided during the 18th century). Presenting India as an consistently united empire is totally absurd.

Second, it's rather disturbing to place in 1700 (!) China/India at the exact same level of Europe in terms of scientific achievement. There is no end to the numbers of mathematicians and scientists in Europe through the 16th and the 17th centuries. Scientific articles on wikipedia during those centuries are almost only filled by Europeans. Just realize that in China it was believed that Earth was flat until they accepted the foreign idea of a sphere in the 17th century. Meanwhile elsewhere, Newton created equations that will be used to calculate gravity until the 20th century. Technology is maybe a more debatable field (though I still believe that overall, Europe was obviously ahead at this point), but in terms of pure "science" I'm quite shocked by the absurd comparison. In terms of accumulated knowledge, India and China didn't have the same arms as Europe to begin an industrial revolution. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that they were more advanced than Europe in some very particular fields, which doesn't change the point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.240.72.102 (talk) 18:41, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is reliably sourced. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph in question is cited to Mokyr (2016), with no page numbers given. However, it seems Mokyr makes the point about unity only in reference to China as contrasted with Europe. And on page 164 he attacks Parthasarati's claim that "as late as 1700, there was no discernible difference between the scientific and technological achievement of Britain and India" after dealing with similar claims about Europe and China. Kanguole 20:20, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is very well known is that China and India had been surpassed by Europe by 1700, which happened at least a couple of centuries earlier. We know that from accounts by scholarly Jesuit missionaries who had access to the Emperor's court where they discussed astronomy. European thinkers were influenced by Greek logic which the Chinese did not adopt. Though the Chinese had movable type printing they had too many characters. The Chinese press was run by the government so only government approved material got published. When movable type started being used in Europe it immediately resulted in a huge increase in the number of titles published. Europe was well ahead with mechanical, mining and chemical technology by the time De re metallica was published. De re Metallicahad a good chapter on chemistry and was the standard text for the next 170 years. Calculus had already been invented and Newton published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which has no equal anywhere in Chinese or Indian science.Phmoreno (talk)

I have not read the California school material, except for an abstract of the Gladstone source. I doubt Pomerez agrees with the statement, but Gladstone is clearly wrong. Parts of China, such as the Yangtze delta were not as far behind Europe by the 18th century, but they were clearly not equal to Europe economically. We know this from the first hand accounts of Europeans. They had no trading empire and the people lived in shanties, having barely enough to eat. China benefited by new crops such as corn and sweet potatoes; however, this resulted in a population explosion, which was a contributing cause to the Taiping Rebellion which resulted in the deaths of 40 million.Phmoreno (talk) 21:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

After reading Gladstone's abstract again I noticed that his paper said 1780, so it did not match the 19th century claim. Obviously that was an error, because the Industrial Revolution was in the 18th C, so I corrected the statement.Phmoreno (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to Paul Bairoch, first-hand accounts of Jesuits in 18th-century China were almost just as enthusiastic about the "marvels of the East" as Marco Polo was in the 13th century. Bairoch also pointed to a late 17th-century travel account from Jean Chardin who said that even the peasants in Persia had higher living standards than the peasants in the most fertile parts of Europe. While Bairoch acknowledges that there are also some negative descriptions, he notes that they are greatly outnumbered by the positive descriptions, and that overall, traveller accounts generally point to better (rather than worse) living standards in the East up until the 18th century. Maestro2016 (talk) 13:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise for India, the account of Francis Buchanan in the Kingdom of Mysore (South India) around 1800 point to it having higher living standards than in Europe (according to economic historians Sashi Sivramkrishna and Prasannan Parthasarathi). Maestro2016 (talk) 13:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]