Kenneth Pomeranz

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.

China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy

The Great Divergence

Emily McMeans

“Only in overseas colonization and armed trading did Europe's financial institutions—nurtured by a system of competing, debt-financed states—give it a crucial edge.”

“Jones also argues that Europe's most common disasters—principally epidemics, wars, and harvest failures—mostly destroyed labor, rather than capital, while earthquakes and floods, which were more common in many parts of Asia than they were in Europe, were more likely to destroy capital.”

The Great Divergence quotes

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