Review Article: The Great Divergence
| Author | Michael Mann |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0305829817730666 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829817730666
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2018, Vol. 46(2) 241 –248
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829817730666
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Review Article: The Great
Divergence
Michael Mann
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev, Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global
Perspective (Switzerland: Springer, 2015, 264 pp., £72.00, pbk).
Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu, How the West Came to Rule (London: Pluto
Press, 2015, 400 pp., £22.44, pbk).
Kaveh Yazdani, India, Modernity and the Great Divergence: Mysore and Gujarat (17th to 19th C.)
(Leiden: Brill, 2017, 648 pp., £178.40, hbk).
How the West came to briefly dominate the world has been a major debate within the
human sciences ever since the writings of 19th century luminaries like Marx and Weber.
The question remains controversial. In recent decades the debate raged over two main
issues. First, between those who give answers primarily in terms of developments within
Europe itself – labelled Eurocentrics by their opponents – and those who prefer a more
global explanation. Linked to this is the second issue, a debate over the relative level of
development through time of Europe vis-à-vis the major civilisations of Asia, especially
China. Attention has focussed on a relatively unimportant issue: when was the ‘moment’ of
overtaking by Europe, more specifically by Britain. The ‘California School’ say this initia-
tion of the ‘Great Divergence’ happened after 1800 and rather accidentally; the Europeanists
put it earlier and see it as a long-term process deeply rooted in European social structure.
Of course, we have to be Eurocentric in terms of the immediate consequence, since it was
Western Europe that pioneered the greatest revolution ever in human experience, compara-
ble to the Neolithic Revolution but far, far swifter. But its causes are up for debate.
Nowadays, however, the debate has softened. Both schools recognise some of their
own weaknesses and some of the strengths of the other. For a few, the polemic endures.
Anievas and Nişancıoğlu repeatedly accuse ‘Eurocentrics’ of presenting ‘hermetically
sealed’, ‘internalist’, and ‘methodologically insulated’ explanations. They are flogging a
dying horse. I myself recognised long ago that I had previously neglected the influences
on Europe coming from China and the Arab world. Conversely, members of ‘the
California School’ recognise that ‘accidents’ need supplementing with structures, and
one of them, Jack Goldstone, has recognised the role of longer term European dyna-
mism. The result, apart from a few traditionalists, has been a proliferation of overlapping
730666MIL0010.1177/0305829817730666Millennium: Journal of International StudiesReview Article
book-review2017
Review Article
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