The Great Divergence Notes
The Great Divergence
2.1. Opening Closed Worlds
Pre-industrial societies experienced slow but noticeable advancements. The period spanning from the Middle Ages to the early modern age saw a sharp increase in the rate of change, beginning around 1492 with the "discovery" of America, which initiated a global transformation lasting until the 18th century and the Industrial Revolution. This era created both winners and losers, with Eurasian societies gaining prominence due to their advancements since the Bronze Age. This led to the rise of European supremacy, a process known as the "Great Divergence".
The Silk Road served as a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia, facilitating the exchange of people, ideas, and goods like silk, spices, tea, and precious stones. Europe, particularly the Mediterranean area, was not entirely isolated. Caravan routes across the Sahara connected it to Central Africa, although this region remained largely unknown to Europeans. Few individuals, like Marco Polo, ventured beyond Europe and the Mediterranean, and only highly valuable goods were traded over long distances.
The opening of new trade routes and the integration of vast areas into a global economy was a crucial development. French historian Pierre Chaunu noted that the opening of these closed worlds between the mid-15th and mid-16th centuries was a major turning point in human history, initiating significant change. This began in 1434 when Portuguese explorer Gil Eanes sailed beyond Cape Bojador in Western Morocco. This was the culmination of efforts that began centuries earlier when Italian mercantile republics like Genoa and Venice expanded maritime trade beyond the Mediterranean.
Italian ships primarily sailed northwards, establishing trade routes between the Mediterranean and markets in Flanders and England. They acquired raw materials, semi-finished goods (wool, metals), and spices, monopolizing this trade through their bases in the Levant. However, they could not proceed further south than Safi in Morocco, a hub for gold, spices, and ivory from Central Africa. Attempts to sail westwards also failed. In 1291, Genoese merchants Ugolino and Vadino Vivaldi rediscovered the Canary Islands but were lost at sea attempting to reach the Indies.
A major technical challenge was that Italian galleys, suitable for Mediterranean trade and warfare, were not equipped for ocean voyages. These galleys were maneuverable and relied on rowers with occasional sails. They struggled in open waters, remaining close to coastlines due to their low sides which provided little protection against ocean waves. Traders in the North Sea and Baltic used round, high-sided cogs capable of carrying heavy loads. These ships facilitated the Hanseatic League’s control over trade in the Baltic and Northern Europe. However, cogs were slow, difficult to maneuver, and unsuitable for long-distance Atlantic voyages.
Portugal's success in Atlantic exploration, where Italian republics had failed, stemmed from advances in naval technology. These advancements combined northern and Mediterranean shipbuilding principles, resulting from the exchange of ideas along maritime trade routes between the Mediterranean and Baltic. The invention of the sternpost rudder greatly improved ship maneuverability. The Portuguese, experienced deep-sea fishermen and traders, were well-positioned to utilize these naval innovations. The caravel, developed in Portuguese shipyards around the mid-15th century under Prince Henry the Navigator, became the symbol of Atlantic exploration.
The rounding of Cape Bojador in 1434, 2,000 from the Portuguese coast, marked a major technical and psychological achievement. Europeans lacked knowledge of the winds beyond this point, and safe return depended on suitable ships and navigation skills. The Portuguese aimed to reach the Indies by circumnavigating Africa but were unaware of its size. It took nearly 40 years to reach the Gulf of Guinea. Bartolomé Diaz successfully rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
The Portuguese established trading bases along the African coast, trading in gold, ivory, and spices from the Gulf of Guinea, and later slaves. When Christopher Columbus proposed an alternative route to the Indies, the Portuguese declined, preferring to continue their established project. In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in India, fulfilling a century-long goal.
Columbus secured support from Spain. In 1492, after completing the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, Spanish sovereigns Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon financed Columbus’s expedition to reach the East Indies, particularly China, by sailing westwards. Columbus landed in the Americas, initiating a new phase of exploration and colonization. The Portuguese reached the Malacca Peninsula in 1510, China in 1513, and Japan in 1543.
These achievements occurred as the Mediterranean faced conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which threatened Italian possessions in the Levant and disrupted spice supplies.
For decades, the Portuguese monopolized maritime trade between Europe and the Far East due to their technological and military superiority, controlling much of the Indian Ocean trade and establishing economic dominance in Asia, later succeeded by other European powers.
The geographical discoveries and new communication routes significantly impacted Europe's "closed world". In the late Middle Ages, only about 1% of total production was traded over long distances. The ancient trading areas were connected into a global economic system, expanding from Europe and integrating routes like the Silk Road and Arab trade routes on the Indian Ocean. Although the goods traded across this new space were a small fraction of total trade (1:10,000 in 1550), this trade broke the boundaries of the "closed worlds", challenging established balances and altering perceptions of the world. The period of 1434-1550 marked the start of "proto-globalisation".
2.2. The Great Divergence: Causes and Timing
The opening of the world between the Middle Ages and the early modern age was led by Eurasian civilizations due to their institutional, technological, environmental, and demographic advantages. The question arises: "Why Europe and not Asia?" This concerns the causes of the "Great Divergence".
The Great Divergence refers to the process by which Western Europe became the richest and most powerful area of the world, overcoming the limitations of pre-industrial agrarian economies and initiating the Industrial Revolution. Improved living conditions helped consolidate European supremacy. Europe had achieved global supremacy by the 19th century.
Many indicators suggest that development was already differentiated before the Industrial Revolution, such as urbanization rates. Asia (China and India) had similar or slightly higher urbanization rates than Western Europe in the late Middle Ages, while Eastern Europe lagged. However, Western Europe surpassed Asia during the 16th century due to accelerated growth in Europe and decline in Asia from the 17th century.
In 1500, Asian civilizations (India, China, and Japan) were at least equal to Europe in science and technology. China was ahead in some fields. Printing existed in China from 868 CE, but developed in Europe only during the 15th century. The "Needham Question" asks why the balance shifted in the 16th century, addressing Europe's technological and scientific supremacy.
There is no agreement among historians on the origins and causes of the Great Divergence. Explanations can be classified into three broad categories: 1) demographic; 2) institutional; 3) geographical and geopolitical.
Demographic explanations
Eurasia’s high population density, advanced agricultural technologies, and plant species suitable for domestication explain why the opening of the world began there. Some theories suggest that the population in the Mediterranean area was more concentrated than in the Chinese Empire or Indian sub-continent, facilitating communication, rapid diffusion of ideas, and incentives to innovate due to pressure on limited resources.
Gregory Clark suggests that the Black Death provided a "solution" to the Malthusian trap. The plague caused high mortality, preventing the population from negating improvements in per capita income from technological progress. By reducing life expectancy, the plague paradoxically improved living conditions, as evidenced by the rise in real wages after the Black Death.
Institutional explanations
Western Europe’s institutions differed from those of East Asia, enabling the emergence of societies capable of introducing economic and technical-scientific innovations. Joseph Needham emphasized the importance of universities in Western Europe, which fostered the development of knowledge and triggered the scientific revolution. He saw mercantile cities as crucibles of advanced economic institutions and the bourgeoisie as interested in enterprise and innovation. Centralized state systems in Asian empires restricted trade, the emergence of "capitalistic" economic elites, and scientific progress.
Neo-institutionalism posits that every society needs institutions to organize interaction between producers, consumers, and the state, and the efficiency of an economic system depends on that of its institutions. Explanations for the Great Divergence range from market conditions in Europe to improvements in private property rights in the West and the degree of interest political institutions took in the requests of economic elites.
Despite the difficulty of refuting some institutional explanations, there's an evident inefficiency and rigidity in the state and governmental structures of the great Asian empires. There are also similarities across Eurasia. Those who refuse an institutional explanation often identify demographic, geographical, or geopolitical factors as the cause of the Great Divergence.
Geographical and geopolitical explanations
Why did European ships reach China, if Chinese ships did not reach Europe? Between 1413 and 1433, Admiral Zheng He led diplomatic and exploratory missions towards the West, reaching Mogadishu and Mombasa in East Africa. However, he ventured no further. Some suggest Zheng He encountered the same problems on Africa’s western coast as the Portuguese, but decided it was not worth going further.
Jared Diamond suggests that natural barriers (mountain ranges, rivers) fragmented Europe into smaller, competitive states, leading to innovation as they sought advantages over rivals. Great Asian empires, such as China and Japan, were often ready to forbid potentially useful technological innovations, preferring to preserve social stability because they had no direct competitors and no significant short-term cost for rejecting progress. Japan abandoned firearms during the 17th century to prevent civil wars. China abandoned ocean navigation following Zheng He’s expeditions due to the expense and a change in preference at the Imperial court.
Kenneth Pomeranz has stressed the importance for Western Europe of having easy access to the Americas, where supplies of essential resources could be obtained. Both Western Europe and Asia faced a crucial ecological problem during the early modern age. The law of diminishing returns meant that intensive and advanced agricultural systems ran the constant risk of becoming trapped in an increasingly labour intensive economy. Europe was able to avoid this trap only because the discovery and subsequent exploitation of the Americas, with their natural resources and fertile soils, enabled Europe to pursue a capital intensive model of development.
In specific areas of Europe (particularly England), there was a relative abundance of some key resources near densely populated areas, especially of coal. The replacement of wood with coal allowed more intensive land use and the development of energy intensive production sectors, which was a decisive factor in launching the Industrial Revolution. Pomeranz, however, tends to minimise Europe’s relative advantage during the early modern age, suggesting that a true divergence in living conditions and development levels between West and East appeared only in the 19th century.
Many historians emphasize the exploitation of non-European peoples as an essential factor in the West’s achievement of supremacy. Immanuel Wallerstein interprets the creation of the first global “world-economy” in terms of the progressive institution of a system articulated in a core, a semi-periphery and a periphery. The dominion of the centre imposes an unequal trade system which consolidates the supremacy of the centre, but at the same time it tends to make the relative underdevelopment of the peripheries into a permanent condition. The origin of the process is held to be the small advantage that some areas of Western Europe had in terms of accumulation of capital.
There are no simple explanations for the Great Divergence. The concept refers to a condition of Western supremacy, which has been greatly eroded in recent years by the emergence of other economies, in particular China. Some foresee China’s return to the position of supremacy it enjoyed until around 1500. However, there are also many who theorize that the conditions for this to occur do not exist, at least in terms of economic development (measurable via GDP per capita). The first case would mean that the Great Divergence was merely an interlude (up to a maximum of five or six centuries) in human history, and not a major and irreversible turning point.
2.3. Beyond Eurasia: America, Africa and Oceania
No academics believe that the great Central American civilizations, the kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa or Australian aborigines could have played Western Europe’s role in launching the great process of expansion and construction of a world economic system, because these cultures were at a disadvantage from the outset. When Europe had its first contacts with these civilizations, European technological and military superiority was so evident that Europeans were able to impose their interests almost without any hindrance.
The story of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, who overthrew the Aztec Empire in just three years with only 600 men and 15 cannons, is emblematic. A similar fate befell the Inca Empire, conquered by Francisco Pizarro in 1532-1533. These easy victories were not only due to the superior quality of European weaponry and the use of gunpowder and horses; an even more important factor was the involuntary “bacteriological weapon” of pathogens brought by the European explorers. Plague, smallpox and even the common cold were devastating for the native populations. On the other hand, Europeans found the American biological environment relatively healthy, and the only important disease to travel in the opposite direction, from the Americas to Europe, was syphilis.
In the Americas, the Spanish found large quantities of precious metals. The natives were forced into a system of compulsory labour (encomienda). Miners were subjected to harsh working conditions and separated from their families for up to 10 months a year; both factors not only increased mortality rates but also reduced the birth rate. The population of Central Mexico, estimated as 6.3 million in 1548, had fallen to 1.9 million in 1580 and amounted to barely 1 million in 1605. Population decline in the area under the Inca Empire (Peru) was equally dramatic, and in North America it is estimated that between 1500 and 1800 the indigenous population fell from approximately 5 million to scarcely 60,000.
Although the Spanish and Portuguese actions in Central and South America played a major role in eroding the structure of native societies, thus contributing to their demographic collapse, the Europeans did not aim to destroy the local populations. The solution was found in the slave trade. Between 1500 and the trade’s final abolition in 1870, 9.5 million people were forcibly shipped from Africa to the Americas. Most of this trade took place after 1700, and was mainly directed towards the flourishing sugar plantations of Brazil and the Caribbean.
The Spanish and Portuguese built up vast and articulated colonial empires in the Americas. In Africa, the Portuguese went no further than establishing a solid network of outposts, trading posts and forts, concentrating only on gaining control of the coasts and shipping lanes, trading with local peoples to obtain African goods (including slaves from the Gulf of Guinea). The Portuguese also pursued a similar strategy in Asia from their Indian bases in Goa and Calicut, the Malacca Peninsula and Macao in China. In Asia, the Spanish limited their control almost exclusively to the Philippines (colonized from 1565), also because the Treaties of Tordesillas (1494) and Zaragoza (1529) divided the world into precise spheres of influence along lines of longitude.
From the early 17th century, the Dutch were the first to explore Oceania. British naval officer and explorer Captain James Cook was the first European to arrive in New Zealand (1769) and on Australia’s east coast (1770). Only about twenty years after Cook’s voyage did the English found their first Australian colony at Botany Bay (1788), partly as a reaction to the loss of most of their North American colonies.