The main concern of this book is to determine when the gap in living standards between the East and the West emerged. Why did Europe experience industrialization and modern economic growth before China, India, or Japan? This is one of the most fundamental questions in Economic history and one that has provoked intense debate. The established view, dating back to Adam Smith, is that the gap emerged long before the industrial revolution.
Keywords: Adam Smith, demographic indicators, seventeenth century economics, eighteenth century economics, Eastern economics, Western economics, economic stress, demographic vulnerability, living standards
|Print publication date: 2005||Print ISBN-13: 9780199280681|
|Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2005||DOI:10.1093/0199280681.001.0001|