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Why understanding the timing of divergence matters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2021

Jack A. Goldstone*
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Fairfax, 22030-4444VA, USA
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: jgoldsto@gmu.edu

Abstract

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Type
Closing Remarks
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I wish to thank my commentators twice over. First, for providing the data that were the subject of my essay. I am a comparative-historical sociologist, trained to seek patterns and causal relations in world history; without the incredible work of these scholars, I and other world historians would be far poorer and less able to do our work. My debt to them, and my admiration for their truly path-breaking achievements, is immense. Second, I thank them for so thoughtfully responding to my interpretation of their work. Their replies force me to sharpen my argument and consider new approaches to the data.

References

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4 J. Mokyr, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (2016); J. Goldstone, “Divergence in Cultural Trajectories: The Power of the Traditional within the Early Modern,” in Comparative Early Modernities 1100-1800, ed. David Porter (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012), 165–92.

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10 Burlingh, Campbell, Rijpma and van Zanden, “Church Building,” Figure 5.

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13 Broadberry, Guan, and Li, “China, Europe,” 955–1000.

14 S. Broadberry and J. Wallis, “Growing, Shrinking and Long Run Economic Performance: Historical Perspectives on Economic Development,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 23343, 2017, http://www.nber.org/papers/w23343, p. 18.

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16 J. Goldstone, “The Problem of the ‘Early Modern’ World,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41 (1998): 249–84; K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).