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The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia
Why did modern states and economies develop first in the peripheral and late-coming culture of Europe? This historical puzzle looms behind every study of industrialization and economic development. In his analytical and comparative work Eric Jones sees the economic condition forming where natural environments and political systems Europe's economic rise is explained as a favored interaction between them, contrasting with the frustrating pattern of their interplay in the Ottoman empire, India and China. A new preface and afterword have been added for the third edition. Previous Edition Hb (1987): 0-521-33449-7 Previous Edition Pb (1987): 0-521-33670-8
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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March 7, 2022Essential read for every student of the roots of European and global economic growth. Make sure to get the 3rd edition as it includes some updates and, most importantly, a response to criticism that Jones received from other scholars.
The core theme/argument of the book is that Europe was politically always fractionalized whereas other parts of the world were hosting large unified empires. This fractionalization led to a very different state system and meant that polities were smaller on average and were competing against each other in different sort of spheres. The latter was also picked up by other scholars as a core feature that made Europe different (and more successful), e.g. Phil Hoffman (military development) or Joel Mokyr (mobility and refuge for people and ideas).
tbc.
The core theme/argument of the book is that Europe was politically always fractionalized whereas other parts of the world were hosting large unified empires. This fractionalization led to a very different state system and meant that polities were smaller on average and were competing against each other in different sort of spheres. The latter was also picked up by other scholars as a core feature that made Europe different (and more successful), e.g. Phil Hoffman (military development) or Joel Mokyr (mobility and refuge for people and ideas).
tbc.
April 15, 2020
The usual mildly racist stance of "us better, them inferior" and the rationalization required to reach that comfortable conclusion.
September 4, 2022
The European Miracle : Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (1981) by Eric Jones is a gem of a book that looks at why Europe took off economically from about 1400 and was the place where the industrial revolution took place. Jones was an Oxford educated professor of Economic History at La Trobe University in Victoria. Jones also worked for a time with Joel Mokyr.
Chapter 8, Beyond Europe, starts with a quote that describes the purpose of the book:
“Any objective survey of the past 10,000 years of human history would show that during almost all of it, northern Europeans were an inferior barbarian race, living in squalor and ignorance, producing few cultural innovations
Peter Farb”
The book starts by looking Eurasia and the Environmental and social conjectures and then Disasters and Capital Accumulation. The next section is on Europe and looks at the European market economy, the states of Europe, then the creation of Nation States. The following section looks at the world excluding Asia and Europe and how it fared prior to 1800. Then the Ottoman Empire, India and China are compared. Finally there is a summation and comparison.
It’s very hard to work out why Europe advanced and why others didn’t. We can’t run experiments where Europe is conquered by Charlemagne and is under one empire for the next 800 years. We can’t try history where China is split into 5 parts and see if China is where economic take off happens. The best we can do is reason and compare and this book does that very well.
The book does speculate on the 'Needham Question' somewhat and proposes that had Chinese rulers not turned inward and had they allowed more trade then the Industrial revolution may well have occurred in China. Jones also makes the point that it was perhaps the proximity to the Mongols that was the key difference. The book writes about how Francis Bacon pondered why China wasn't visiting and perhaps plundering Europe because China had invented gunpowder and the printing press.
The places where economic take off was likely to occur is narrowed down in the book to Europe, China and India. The reason for is that in 1500 they had about 80% of the world's population and a large population supporting many non-farmers was required. Also inventions could travel between them and this greatly benefited Europe that could use Hindu Arabic numerals, the printing press and gunpowder without inventing them.
The book puts forward the idea that European seasons may have helped Europe by making it harder for damaging microbes to survive in Europe than in more tropical countries. It’s a plausible idea. The book also states that pathogen loading’s of Chinese peasants in the South were higher than Europeans as far as the twentieth century. America’s remoteness and lack of contact from Europe is pointed out as being a limiting factor.
Europe’s geography is also posited to have been beneficial. Europe doesn’t have a single large cereal growing area but instead has multiple which favors the development of smaller states because one single area is not enough to control. In addition Europe’s geography with hills and rivers made it difficult for one power to dominate. But the powers that arose could then communicate and trade with each other by sea. When one state become a decaying autocracy other states that were more vigorous would take parts of it. But as no single state ever dominated stagnation of one state crippling development wasn’t possible.
The European Miracle is a fantastic book that really looks into what institutional and geographic features made it so that Europe, rather than China or India, was the place where economic growth happened.
Chapter 8, Beyond Europe, starts with a quote that describes the purpose of the book:
“Any objective survey of the past 10,000 years of human history would show that during almost all of it, northern Europeans were an inferior barbarian race, living in squalor and ignorance, producing few cultural innovations
Peter Farb”
The book starts by looking Eurasia and the Environmental and social conjectures and then Disasters and Capital Accumulation. The next section is on Europe and looks at the European market economy, the states of Europe, then the creation of Nation States. The following section looks at the world excluding Asia and Europe and how it fared prior to 1800. Then the Ottoman Empire, India and China are compared. Finally there is a summation and comparison.
It’s very hard to work out why Europe advanced and why others didn’t. We can’t run experiments where Europe is conquered by Charlemagne and is under one empire for the next 800 years. We can’t try history where China is split into 5 parts and see if China is where economic take off happens. The best we can do is reason and compare and this book does that very well.
The book does speculate on the 'Needham Question' somewhat and proposes that had Chinese rulers not turned inward and had they allowed more trade then the Industrial revolution may well have occurred in China. Jones also makes the point that it was perhaps the proximity to the Mongols that was the key difference. The book writes about how Francis Bacon pondered why China wasn't visiting and perhaps plundering Europe because China had invented gunpowder and the printing press.
The places where economic take off was likely to occur is narrowed down in the book to Europe, China and India. The reason for is that in 1500 they had about 80% of the world's population and a large population supporting many non-farmers was required. Also inventions could travel between them and this greatly benefited Europe that could use Hindu Arabic numerals, the printing press and gunpowder without inventing them.
The book puts forward the idea that European seasons may have helped Europe by making it harder for damaging microbes to survive in Europe than in more tropical countries. It’s a plausible idea. The book also states that pathogen loading’s of Chinese peasants in the South were higher than Europeans as far as the twentieth century. America’s remoteness and lack of contact from Europe is pointed out as being a limiting factor.
Europe’s geography is also posited to have been beneficial. Europe doesn’t have a single large cereal growing area but instead has multiple which favors the development of smaller states because one single area is not enough to control. In addition Europe’s geography with hills and rivers made it difficult for one power to dominate. But the powers that arose could then communicate and trade with each other by sea. When one state become a decaying autocracy other states that were more vigorous would take parts of it. But as no single state ever dominated stagnation of one state crippling development wasn’t possible.
The European Miracle is a fantastic book that really looks into what institutional and geographic features made it so that Europe, rather than China or India, was the place where economic growth happened.
May 27, 2023
The European Miracle looks at the economic, environmental, religious and political factors that lead to the rise of Europe as a dominant world power over other areas. This book focuses on comparing Europe to the Ottomans, India and China. It purposefully does not spend much time on the Americas, Africa and excludes Japan as an aberration of this overall theory. This book looks at the environment and the rise and fall of various plagues, droughts, storms and other factors that insulated Europe from large natural disasters. It also looks at the political organization of the nation state arising from feudal empires to city states to kingdoms that allowed Europe to organize in a way other areas did not. This is definitely a meta-analysis that stays high level and offers up a theory that is well played out. Overall an enjoyable read but not a deep dive into this topic.
October 26, 2019
I discovered this book when it was mentioned in a video on YouTube entitled "Our Family of Nations". The author describes Europeans as "ceaseless tinkerers".
December 5, 2020
La respuesta última no está dada, pero el análisis es apasionante.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews