Via Peking back to Manchester. Britain, the Industrial Revolution and China, 109 pages (original) (raw)

Copyright reserved. Subject to the exceptions provided for by law, no part of this publication may be reproduced and/ or published in print, by photocopying, on microfilm or in any other way without the written consent of the copyright-holder(s); the same applies to whole or partial adaptations. The publisher retains the sole right to collect from third parties fees in respect of copying and/or take legal or other action for this purpose. Via Peking back to Manchester This text is based on the inaugural lecture I gave when I formally accepted my position as professor in comparative global history at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. It was given on December 12 in 2001, and published in an extended version, as Via Peking terug naar Manchester, Engeland, de Industriële Revolutie en China (Nijmegen 2001) ISBN 90-9015464-7. (Via Peking back to Manchester: Britain, the Industrial Revolution, and China) The Foundation for the promotion of the study of world history and the history of mankind (Stichting ter bevordering van de studie van wereld-en mensheidgeschiedenis) gave me a grant to have it translated into English. The translator was Kate Williams. To really make it an adequate 'state of the art-piece', I decided to further revise and extend it, so the final version turned out to be what it is now: a little book more than three times the size of the original text. The book was written during my stay as Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The fellowship was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. (NWO). I would like to thank all who helped me in writing and publishing this text. Via Peking back to Manchester: Britain, the Industrial Revolution, and China 'The Industrial Revolution … a thrice-squeezed orange … with an astonishing amount of juice in it'. J.H. Clapham, 'The transference of the worsted industry from Norfolk to the West Riding', Economic Journal 20 (1910) page 195. '… wir jetzt durchaus über China Bescheid wissen. Wir haben so gründliche Kenntnisse ihrer Literatur und ihres ganzen Lebens wie ihrer Geschichte'.

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The Great Divergence Between China and England: Why Industrial Revolution Happened in Europe?

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The world economic history of nineteenth century witnessed with the emerging of huge gap in technological development between Orient and Occident, mainly between China and England, which was named as a “Great Divergence” by the economic historians. In this century, despite all privileges of China and the technological development that it possesses for centuries, the Europe, mainly Western Europe, entered into the world history with its immense development in technology, which is later identified as Industrial Revolution by the world historians. For that reason, on of the challenged question that the economic historians of the world came upon today is, if China had a priority over the rest of world in the term of the technical development and economic sense approximately a millennium and was in the same development level with the most developed part of Europe around end of eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century, why Industrial Revolution was produced in Europe, which gave it a world economic and political superiority, but why not in Asia/China? Therefore, this research paper firstly tries to analyze whether culture and religion really matter in this process as Eurocentric scholars argue and do they have any impacts over the “Great Divergence” and then seeks to investigate what historical events caused Europe to gain a technological and economic privileges over rest of world, while making a brief journey to the economic history of the world.

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