LSE, 4th of November 2011, URKEW-project: workshop and book launch
“Why Europe grew Rich and Asia did not? Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850”
Ever since The Great Divergence debate was initiated by Ken Pomeranz, the discussion has
been focused on a comparison of Europe and China. With the new book by Prasannan
Parthasarathi, entitled “Why Europe grew Rich and Asia did not? Global Economic
Divergence, 1600-1850”, the discussion for the first time is widened to India. In order to
fully grasp the impact of the book on the ‘Great Divergence’ discussion, it was discussed in
four sessions. In every panel two experts commentated on the book and gave their views on
the impact and shortcomings of the book in their particular field of expertise: “State and
Status of the Divergence Debate after a decade of discourse” (Vries and O’Brien), “The
Missing Case of India” (Washbrook and Das Gupta), “Ming and Qing China” (Schaefer and
Deng) and “India and the Industrialisation of Europe” (Berg and Riello). After comments
from these specialists the author responded to their remarks after which the audience joint
in. The main points were that the author had to be careful to equate England with Europe
and India with Asia. The difficulty in calculating wages and standard of living for India were
widely discussed. It was advised, not to equate ‘Ming’ and ‘Qing’ periods in Chinese history.
At the same time, the situation in Europe need not be forgotten as political economy,
technology and fashion were majorly influenced by the influx of Asian luxury goods. The
author made a valiant attempt to stress that India does matter in this discussion. If you want
to fully understand why the specialist came to their points or how this book contributes to
so many different discussions, it might a good idea to start reading it.