Gabriel Lambert Page 1 of 9

What was ‘the great divergence’? What key advantages enabled some
European states to outstrip the economic and political performance of
Asia’s great empires 1750-1840?

The Treaties of Tianjin, ratified in October 1860 by the Emperor of China’s

brother Yixin, the Prince Gong, represented a final humiliation for the Chinese
state after four years of military defeats in the Second Opium War. Sixty years
beforehand the Chinese had smartly rejected Lord Macartney’s offer of
diplomatic relations with Britain in 1793 and derided his ‘objects strange and
ingenious’1 that he offered as gifts as valueless. In the Treaties Chinese ports
were forced to open to Western trade, foreigners were granted free travel within
China and indemnities to Britain, France, and western merchants were
demanded.

The Treaties provided a powerful demonstration of the ‘great divergence’, the

phrase used to describe the gap that emerged between some European states
and the Asian Empires2 in terms of economics (greater volume of trade and
access to markets, urbanization, agricultural efficiency and specialization),
politics, military might, technology and culture, namely the development of a
value system that supported exploration, consumption, enterprise and the
concept that man could win control over nature. Though it is fairly clear that the
most marked contrasts between the states developed in the early 19th century, it
is less obvious when the processes that led up to such contrasts began. Should
one look at 16th and 17th century Europe to try to find traces of proto-industrial
growth? Is it futile to look for differences between European and Asian states
before 1800? Or does one have to abandon normal historical time altogether and
look to the geographical preconditions that each continent was given thousands
of years ago?

There are some problems with posing a question which includes an assumption
of European superiority in the 18th and 19th centuries. The phrase ‘political
performance’ has undertones of the Weberian concept of rational-legal authority

1
J.Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Global History of Empire, p201
2
The Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan and Qing China
Gabriel Lambert Page 2 of 9

and suggests that there is an objective standard on which governance can be

judged while the word ‘economy’ began to take on its current meaning amidst
industrialising Britain3 and has strong connotations with European industrial
capitalism. These concepts were created and discussed in Europe either to
describe European development or to apply to other countries to demonstrate
and explore their comparative developmental deficiencies. Linguistically, the
terms of investigation can therefore be seen to be pregnant with Eurocentric
ideas as to the nature of progress. It is vital to avoid using this European ‘model’
as a yardstick against which to judge other countries. Instead, one should
consider the idea that not only are there many paths towards the ‘modern’ but
that definitions of ‘modernity’ will differ markedly from place to place.

With this in mind, one can look at the ‘natural’ advantages of European states in
terms of superior access to the resources vital to industrialisation, a more
moderate climate, and a location that created a ‘family of experiments in
government decision-making’4 in Europe while leaving the Asian Empires
comparatively isolated. Firstly, European access to coal, particularly in Wales,
Yorkshire and the Ruhr valley dramatically reduced the cost of fuelling the
factory machinery that proved so important as Europe industrialised. China did
have large stocks of coal but 61.4% was located in the north western Shanxi
province and Inner Mongolia while only 1.8% was in the nine southern
provinces.5 The problem with this divide was that in 1100-1400 the north and
north west were invaded, occupied and witnessed civil war and plague causing
China’s economic and demographic centre to shift to the comparatively calmer
south.6 Thus the lower Yangzi, the ‘industrial’ heart of China did not have the
easy access to coal that Europe and especially Britain had. While India was
sitting on great coal reserves, the lack of a network of navigable rivers and the
inadequacy of the Mughal canal-building project meant that effective
transportation would have been impossible. It is important to note that coal

3
‘Political œconomy’ was cited in the OED from, 1767 and referred to arguments concerning
laws and management of a national economy. SUTHERLAND, K. in p466 A. Smith The Wealth of
Nations
4
E.L.Jones, The European Miracle, p245 Jones
5
K.Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, p64
6
ibid, p62
Gabriel Lambert Page 3 of 9

should be seen as a potential limiting factor rather than a trigger to the

industrialisation process – a model of Britain’s economy in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries reveals that, without coal, economic growth would have
been severely curtailed as it was the foundation of Britain’s energy-intensive
industry.7

Secondly, the moderate climate of Europe gave it several key advantages. Firstly
the kinds of crops supported by European soil were less labour intensive than
the ricer-heavy agricultures of India and China – it has been estimated that
Chinese farmers spent as much time on water control as Europeans spent on all
their farm work.8 To enable industrial economic growth, a ‘marginal’ population
of workers not required to work the land is essential and from 1500 to 1800 the
number of rural non-agricultural workers in England doubled to reach 36%. 9
There is also an argument to make concerning the effect of the endoparasitic
infestation common in China and India resulting from dense populations
operating irrigation agriculture in warm climates – a combination of the
debilitating effect of parasites, heat, malnutrition and tropical disease may have
cut productivity by as much as 87%.10 Winters in Europe were effective at killing
such parasites.11 Chinese and Indian agriculture was also unpredictable. In
Bengal between 1661 and 1671 alone the average yearly price of 100 maunds of
rice fluctuated from RS27 to RS71.12 Such figures are a reflection of the fact that
India was trying to maintain irrigation agriculture that relied on rain and flood,
especially from mountain snow-melts, both of which are unpredictable. Having
erratic food prices is not necessarily an inhibition to economic growth and there
is evidence that extreme variation of agricultural output might have led to
economic specialisation in India as communities wanted to ensure they always
had good or services to trade for food from a more productive region. 13 But it did
draw the attention of the Chinese government – in the 18th century grain to feed

7
R. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, p125-8
8
E.L.Jones, The European Miracle, p9
9
R. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, p17
10
E.L.Jones, The European Miracle, p7
11
ibid, p6
12
D.Washbrook, ‘ India in the Early Modern World Economy’ Journal of Global History 2, p91
13
ibid, p95
Gabriel Lambert Page 4 of 9

14 million people was transported long-distance within China. 14 By

redistributing the problem, China prevented a ‘technological bottleneck’ that
might have led to the invention of means of stabilising the local situation, 15
supporting the idea that China fell into a ‘high-level equilibrium trap.’ 16 India too
was locked in a ‘zero-sum game’ as people, capital and resources moved from
region to region depending on the crop yields, preventing cumulative growth in
one area.17

So far, geography has only been used to point to conditions necessary for rather
than causes of the great divergence. But the idea that Europe was a system
‘chronically independent states’18 because of its naturally divisive physical
terrain begins to point towards more proximate contributing factors. The
physical evidence for this is abundant: Europe has a highly indented coastline
with five fairly isolated large peninsulas,19 while the Chinese coastline is both
less extensive, less intended and has no islands the size of Britain or Ireland;
European mountain ranges20 helped create natural barriers in Europe, while the
only mountains in China that act as a barrier are east of the Tibetan plateau; and
finally the Danube and the Rhine flow through a far smaller proportion of Europe
than do the Yangtze and the Yellow River.21 Therefore within Europe there were
a series of natural barriers that fostered separated linguistic, ethnic and political
units while the northern Han Chinese were able to colonise the south fairly
easily, creating a monolithic ‘virtual island within a continent.’ 22

What is the significance of this? While it would be unfair to say that either the
Chinese or Indian empires did not face external threats (northern barbarians and
Iranian and Afghan border tribes respectively23) they were not on the same scale

14
K.Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, pp35-6
15
ibid, pp59-63
16
M.Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p203
17
C.A.Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 17801914:Global Connections and Comparisons p59
18
J. Diamond, Guns, germs and steel, p415
19
Greece, Italy, Iberia, Denmark and Norway/Sweden
20
Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians and the Norwegian border mountains
21
J. Diamond, Guns, germs and steel, p414
22
ibid, p416
23
J.Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Global History of Empire, p176
Gabriel Lambert Page 5 of 9

as the challenges European (especially continental) powers had – not only were
they geographically more divided from comparable powers, but they were
mentally more isolated (see below). There were two key products of a dense
series of aggressive European states. Firstly, in the 16th and 17th centuries the
natures of warfare changed and with it the political, bureaucratic and financial
apparatus to wage it changed too. The numbers of combatants increased, as did
the amount of training they required - Count John of Nassau produced an
illustrated drill manual in 1599 to teach commanders how to train their troops to
countermarch, load, fire and manoeuvre together.24 The financial drain of
recruiting, equipping, training and supplying new armies was enormous, let
alone the cost of constructing fortifications in the trace italienne style –
modernising Berwick-upon-Tweed between 1558 and 1570 cost Elizabeth I
£130,000, or the equivalent of half of the royal revenue for a year. 25

This financial strain felt by early modern states created the incentive for a
system of European banking to emerge, particularly in Germany and Genoa, and
it became increasingly common, indeed necessary, for states to hold a national
debt. For instance, Charles V borrowed 29 million ducats from German,
Portuguese, Flemish, Spanish and Genoese bankers at the Medina del Campo
between 1520 and 1556.26 The Bank of England represented an extra-
governmental body that was an independent check on the state of the economy. 27
Property law and good financial management were essential for the success of
states – Spanish loan defaulting in the 17th century and French financial
disorganisation in the 18th were key signs of the former’s imperial collapse and
the latter’s dissolution into the political turmoil of the French Revolution. Thus,
European states, especially Britain, France, the Netherlands and some German
states ‘learnt’ how to manage and fund large standing armies whilst operating
with the cooperation of external financial institutions. No Asian state was put
under such financial pressure or, more importantly, had such financial

24
G. Parker, 1988, The Military Revolution – Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-
1800, p20
25
F. Tallett, 1997, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 1495-1715, p168
26
ibid, p174
27
C.A.Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 17801914:Global Connections and Comparisons, p62
Gabriel Lambert Page 6 of 9

opportunities available to them – for instance the Ottoman Empire gave state
contracts to traditional financial families that were very difficult to fulfil as there
was no mechanism independent of the state that could help. 28

European states were also compelled to be competitive in terms of technology

and even science, fostering a culture of experimentalism in the search for new
solutions to the challenges nature created. There was constant demand for
invention and innovation. John Harrison’s production of an accurate
chronometer in 1760 and his receipt of the £20,000 from the Board of Longitude
revealed how lucrative producing new technology could be. 29 If an inventor or
theoretician did not find his ideas were well received in one country, he could
always go to another one – Columbus appealed to the duke of Anjou, the king of
Portugal and two Spanish dukes before eventually getting approval for his
American expedition from Ferdinand II.30 In China and in other Asian empires
there was a strong intellectual life – in 17th century China there was a focus on
mathematics and medicine after the Manchu conquest of 1644 because such
works had no political content.31

But there were several cultural differences between Europe an states and the
Asian Empires – in China the ‘entrenchment of…Confucian learning in a literati
elite and their recruitment to form an imperial bureaucracy’ 32 ensured that the
most intelligent were bound to the state – if they had new ideas that were not
accepted they had nowhere else to go, nor did the Chinese empire have any
urgent imperative to adopt them. The literary elite was bound to the state in a
similar way in the Muslim empires too.33 More than this though, there was a
genuine lack of curiosity about Europe and its inventions – by the end of the 18th
century during the time of the French occupation of Egypt there were over
seventy books on Arabic grammar printed in Europe but not a single one on any
European language in the Middle East – it was only well into the 19th century
28
ibid, p61
29
A.Maddison, Contours of the World Economy 1-2030AD, p82
30
J. Diamond, Guns, germs and steel, p412
31
K.Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, p50
32
J.Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Global History of Empire, p43
33
ibid, p206
Gabriel Lambert Page 7 of 9

that any interest was taken in such foreign languages (indeed perhaps the fact
that learning of Europe was seen as so important is one indication of the
compelling power of western cultural after the ‘great divergence’). 34 In the Tao
Te Ching, on of the founding texts of Taoism Chapter 19 suggests:
‘Banish wisdom, discard knowledge,
And the people will be benefited a hundredfold…’
The fact that Lord Macartney’s gadgets failed to impress the Emperor in 1793 is
a real example of this philosophy being put into practice. An inquisitive attitude
towards nature and the world might well have been experienced in all states –
this would have enabled the supply of new information and ideas. But only in
Europe was the demand for new ideas and technologies necessitated by such
close contact with other competitive states. Moreover, Europe’s curiosity led
states, especially in the north west to seek to apply those new ideas and
technologies in imperial ventures.

So far then, a picture is emerging of geographically different areas – in Europe a

network of mutually-competitive states with a complex system of extra-
governmental financial institutions and a keenness to create and apply
knowledge for their own advantage with the resources and climate to do so. In
the Asian empires the lack of a serious comparable rival nearby prevented them
from being practically required to adopt new technology or ideas or to form
financial institutions free from state control and they often lacked the climate or
the resources to exploit such knowledge to the full. But this cannot be the full
explanation – while geography can help explain limiting factors, the reasons
behind Europe’s cultural aggression and even political behaviour it does not
quite cover the precise proximate reasons for the great divergence. Why was it
specifically around the turn of the 19th century that some European economies
‘took off’ and industrialised.

The attitude towards technology was important – to industrialise one needs to

produce goods at competitive prices, have the agrarian efficiency to maintain a
large urban population to produce those goods, have a system of government

34
B.Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (1982), p295
Gabriel Lambert Page 8 of 9

that enables the safe creation and sale of those goods, and the ability to export
them on a wide scale. Technology and knowledge provides the machines to
produce the goods, the ships to transport those goods and the agricultural
techniques to feed a higher number of people per agricultural worker. 35 But
there must be demand for those ideas, demand which cannot entirely be
explained by the European competitiveness theory, as manufacturers are not so
much concerned with their country’s profit as their own. The key to this demand
for new technology was that in north western European states wages were so
high and coal was so cheap that it was more economically viable to spend money
on reducing the amount of labour needed to produce goods than to spend it on
the high labour costs.36 In Britain had this high wage structure partly because of
the development of draperies after the Black Death37 (land was more plentiful
thus more grazing for sheep, therefore superior quality and quantity of wool),
partly because of the ‘agricultural revolution’ which almost trebled the number
of people each agricultural worker could feed38 and partly because of the trading
benefits with her Atlantic colonies. The only way English goods could become
competitive was to decrease the amount of labour required and increase the use
of machines and therefore fuel.39 The Asian states had no similar wage structure
– population density was such that mechanisation would simply not have been
profitable.

In the very long term, it seems best to point to geographical differences between
Europe and the Asian states, not only in terms of the abundance and location of
the resources available and the different climates, but in terms of how the
placement of countries created a unique system of competitive and reasonably
equal states within Europe while leaving the parts of Asia more open to conquest
by a single linguistic, ethnic and cultural group and therefore fostering the
creation of several fairly isolated empires. This geographical reality shaped the
development of political behaviour, economics and culture, creating an

35
C.A.Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 17801914:Global Connections and Comparisons, p60
36
R. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, p1
37
ibid, p19
38
ibid, p18
39
A.Maddison, Contours of the World Economy 1-2030AD, p73
Gabriel Lambert Page 9 of 9

aggressive, curious Europe capable of maintaining the best equipped and

supplied standing armies and a set of more internalised Asian empires. But the
proximate cause for the ‘take off’ was that there were private financial incentives
to mechanize industry in some states which in turn were caused by more
unpredictable events – the discovery of the Americas and the Black Death to
name but two.

Bibliography:
J. Diamond, Guns, germs and steel (London, 1997)
A.G.Hopkins (ed) Globalisation in World History (2002)
P.Curtin, The World and the West (Cambridge, 2000)
K.Pomeranz, The Great Divergence (Princeton, 2000)
C.A.Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 17801914:Global Connections and
Comparisons (2004)
J.Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Global History of Empire (2007)
E.L.Jones, The European Miracle (Cambridge, 1981)
A.Maddison, Contours of the World Economy 1-2030AD (Oxford, 2007)
J.Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress
(Oxford, 1990)
M.Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (1973)
B.Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (1982)
D.Washbrook, ‘ India in the Early Modern World Economy’ Journal of Global
History 2, (2007)
R. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2009)