070344 SE Seminar (2009S)

One of the most important problems in modern economic history without any doubt is that of the enormous differences in wealth between various countries in the world. When did they arise? What caused them? And, why, up until now, have they not disappeared? The first two questions are central to the debate that ever since Kenneth Pomeranz wrote a book with that title, is known as the debate about the Great Divergence. In this seminar the most important literature that has been published on this topic over roughly the last twenty-five years will be analyzed, discussed and evaluated. It will not come as a surprise that the accent will be on macro-historical comparisons, but that does not at all mean that global connections would be neglected. Apart from discussing existing literature, it will also be discussed what kind of research into what kind of topics might help us in answering these questions.

In the literature that will be discussed, three approaches will function as points of departure.

 

Firstly, there is the literature in which the focus is on long-term, structural, internal causes that would have caused a Western Sonderweg and that are supposed to explain that the West in the end became so rich in contrast to ¿the Rest¿. Work by e.g. Douglass North, Eric Jones, David Landes, Gregory Clark, and, to a much lesser extent, Jack Goldstone can be regarded as exemplifying this approach and will be discussed, always including the most important reviews that have been published about their work. In this perspective the work by Max Weber is seminal. Therefore some texts by him and about him will also be read, as will be texts that have a quite Weberian perspective like those by John Hall, Michael Mann, Ernst Gellner and Alan Macfarlane.  
Then there is the approach in which it is claimed that the West in one way or another became and stayed rich over the back of ¿the Rest¿. To get acquainted with this perspective, texts by dependencia-theorists, in this case Andre Gunder Frank, by Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel, and Jim Blaut, will be read. Then there is the so-called California School, that claims that even in the early modern era the differences between the most advanced parts of the world, overall, were not as striking as the similarities and that the Great Divergence occurred quite late, basically only with industrialisation, was quite contingent and will prove to be transient. In this case texts by Pomeranz and Bin Wong will be read. Finally, there is the even stronger revisionism of e.g. Andre Gunder Frank, Robert Marks or John Hobson, who claim that until the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution the West was a rather backward part of the world as compared to certain parts of Asia.
Apart from original texts by all these authors, we will read a substantial number of reviews of their work. After this general introduction, according to the preferences of the participants, specific topics like the role of the state, science and technology, military affairs or differences in social structure might be discussed.
The course is a seminar. That means that are supposed to participate intensively by reading, presenting and acting as commentator, plus writing a paper.