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Avrupa Zenginleşirken Asya Neden Yoksul Kaldı?
Avrupa Zenginleşirken Asya Neden Yoksul Kaldı?
18. yüzyılın sonundan itibaren endüstrileşen Avrupa ile bu yola girmeyen Asya arasındaki meşhur “ekonomik ayrışma” meselesine verdiği şaşırtıcı cevaplarla çokça konuşulmuş bir kitap.
Hintli yazar Prasannan Parthasarathi 17 ve 18. yüzyıllarda Avrupa ile Asya arasındaki benzerliklerin sanıldığından çok daha fazla olduğunu, farklılıkların ise genellikle düşünüldüğünden daha az önem arz ettiğini ileri sürüyor. Avrupa’nın Asya’ya kıyasla daha üstün bir akılcılığa ve bilime, daha ideal piyasalara ve kurumlara sahip olduğu için zenginleştiğiyle ilgili harcıâlem görüşlerin gerçekten uzak olduğunu Hindistan, Japonya, Çin ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’yla ilgili pek çok ve çeşitli belgelere dayanarak gösteriyor. Küresel ekonomi tarihine dair yeni yorumlarıyla Avrupa merkezci bir tarih okumasının altını oyan bir yaklaşım ortaya koyması dolayısıyla kitabın tarih, ekonomi ve siyaset bilimi gibi farklı disiplinlere meraklı okurların ilgisini çekeceğini umuyoruz.
18. yüzyılın sonundan itibaren endüstrileşen Avrupa ile bu yola girmeyen Asya arasındaki meşhur “ekonomik ayrışma” meselesine verdiği şaşırtıcı cevaplarla çokça konuşulmuş bir kitap.
Hintli yazar Prasannan Parthasarathi 17 ve 18. yüzyıllarda Avrupa ile Asya arasındaki benzerliklerin sanıldığından çok daha fazla olduğunu, farklılıkların ise genellikle düşünüldüğünden daha az önem arz ettiğini ileri sürüyor. Avrupa’nın Asya’ya kıyasla daha üstün bir akılcılığa ve bilime, daha ideal piyasalara ve kurumlara sahip olduğu için zenginleştiğiyle ilgili harcıâlem görüşlerin gerçekten uzak olduğunu Hindistan, Japonya, Çin ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’yla ilgili pek çok ve çeşitli belgelere dayanarak gösteriyor. Küresel ekonomi tarihine dair yeni yorumlarıyla Avrupa merkezci bir tarih okumasının altını oyan bir yaklaşım ortaya koyması dolayısıyla kitabın tarih, ekonomi ve siyaset bilimi gibi farklı disiplinlere meraklı okurların ilgisini çekeceğini umuyoruz.
420 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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About the author
Prasannan Parthasarathi
7 books5 followersPrasannan Parthasarathi is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Boston College.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 24, 2019
I came to this book seeking to understand, "The Great Divergence." I'm from Tamil Nadu, India. I've lived in the West and constantly have questions about, Why the West is better?
Parthasarathi's book is laid out in the following way:
Outline:
The Great Divergence:
Part I: Setting the Stage: Europe and Asia before divergence
Part II: Divergence of Britain
Part III: Indian Path:
Part I:
Introduction:
Parthasarathy starts with saying that there were pressures faced in Britain. The Pressures involved competition in cotton industry, invention of steam engine, availability of coal
Parthasarathi introduces how various scholar’s have approached to Great Divergence. There’s three approaches to Great Divergence:
-First one involves, Property Rights (Asian rulers were despotic and could usurp anyone’s property)
-Second one is European Population lower and ability to gain more capital (Malthusian)
-Last one is Max Weber’s Protestant Work ethic (European Rationality)
Parthasarathi challenges european Scientific Culture and uniqueness. He says there were significant activity of Indian Intellectual life in 1800’s.
My own personal thoughts are: Yes, but what did they do? I think, on military wise, Tippu Sultan might have had his economy, military upgrade from French. This happens throughout history. French were hiring English skilled artisans, clock-makers during a time period. Within Tippu’s empire, Indians combined both European and Indian (local) knowledge. They wanted to understand nature.
Parthasarathi qutoes Edward Said’s Orientalism. He said, Said provided thoughts about Asia being not different from Europe. In-fact few scholars perpetuated the difference as, Asia, “other”. Parthasarathi disagrees. He says for Karl Marx, it is capitalism that provided divergence between Europe and Asia.
Parthasarathi argues we must not apply anachronism by fitting parts of history. Many bring categories of industrialization, social concepts before 18th century. In-fact some categories were not developed before 18th century. I think, this is true. As a lay-reader, I might fall into anachronism.
Part I: -Setting the Stage:
-India and the global economy, 1600–1800
-Political institutions and economic life
In this Chapter, Parthasarathi wants to explore and set historical state before getting into his key question, “Why Europe grew richer?”.
Parthasarathi quotes Immanuel Wallerstein, the American Sociologist and Economic historian. Wallerstein says, “The modern world-system took the form of a capitalist world-economy that had its genesis in Europe in the long sixteenth century . . . Since that time the capitalist world-economy has geographically expanded to cover the entire globe.”
As Wallerstein, most scholars believed that in Europe, had its center for Capitalism.
K. N. Chaudhuri, a historian from Birkbeck college, England showed that mercantile sophistication and commercial dynamism predated before the arrival of European merchants.
In 19th century, China and India were hubs of economic activity. China exported porcelain and Silk. This made China incredibly wealthy. India exported cotton to the rest of the world.
Parthasarathy says, India clothed the world. China was more critical that it monopolized world’s output of silver. He says that he is not there to replace Frank’s Sinocentric global system with an Indo-centric version. Sinocentric Global System means, China was the center of Global affairs, superior to every other country.
Before the 17th century - India’s market for cotton included Indian Ocean and regions close to it. Indian cotton were in demand and were readily accepted in Europe. Indian cottons were essential for slaves in slave trade (French slave trade).
Prathasarathi says another market for Indian Cotton was Americas. The Creativity and talent of Indian cotton cloth manufacturers were unsurpassed by anyone in the world. He says that there was a common belief that it was due to low wages in India for cotton manufacturing, they succeeded.
He gives some evidence arguing against this commonly held belief. Indian cotton was consumed around four corners of the world. As incomes and revenues grew in India, many around the Globe tried to imitate it. Britain successfully surpassed it through innovating with their inventions.
K.N Chaudhuri says, Indian manufacturing involved surplus labor leading to low wages. He says there’s not much evidence that productivity of India was higher than that of Britain. It was around 1760’s, new inventions improved spinning in Britain. He goes into details of A’in-i Akbari giving price and wage data on Mughal India. He says, calico weavers earned more than laborers in agriculture. Parthasarathy quotes, Robert C Allen, a british historian who wrote numerous works around Industrial revolution.
Allen’s conclusion was that standards of living were lower in India. He says, this has been challenged on the basis of voluminous data on prices and income collected by Francis Buchanan. Francis Buchanan was a Scottish Physician who made numerous contributions to zoology, botany and geograpgy while living in India. He surveyed several districts of South India around early 19th century. He called, Tippu Sultan, a wonderful projector, and reported that Mysore had succeeded in manufacturing “broad-cloth, paper formed on wires like the European kind, watches, and cutlery.
3: Political Institutions and Economic Life:
In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith shared that nations of Europe were most prosperous. China and India had become stagnant. French physician, Francois Bernier provided an account of Mughal Empire travels. In Francois works, he mentioned that rulers oppressed their people, deprived of their rights and fruits of their labor. Montesquie read this account and wrote laws, customs, manners of orient remain unchanging.
Thomas Malthus argued that checks and balances in society involves famine, diseases to arrest human demographics. This would cause flourishing at times due to controlling Over Population.
He adds and says that Karl Marx, could write with great authority about Indian Society. He says, “Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society.”
In 20th century, In addition to the above two arguments, Max Weber added rationality to the list for divergence between Europeans and Asia. Here Parthasarathy is exploring these assumptions from Weber, He says Indian sub-continent is not different from Europe. Despotic ruler idea originated from Machiavelli’s book on Ottoman Empire, the entire region is controlled by one Master, and everyone else is his slave.
Due to Despotism, agricultures would not invest more in expanding their enterprise, merchants hid their investments and capitals because the Mughal empire owned everything. Parthasarathy has been trying to rebut European arguments against Asia throughout the book.
Irfan Habib, an Indian historian has offered a classic description from Mughal India: “It was inevitable that the actual burden on the peasantry should became so heavy in some areas as to encroach upon their means of survival. Parthasarathy says the despotic view has been discredited. Mughals were, King of Kings. They were power brokers who negotiated with Zamindars and other Local Rulers throughout India.
Parthasarathy clears my doubt about rest of India, it seems like King was extremely wealthy and others did not have a good quality of life. He says, Adam Smith’s critique of India was due to Caste System, most of labor stock had to stick with same occupation.
All Son's followed their Father’s occupation due to Caste, as a result there was no social-mobility. However, Parthasarathy says there were cases in 18th century, that there was mobility among occupations. He disagrees about Caste being a rigid structure and quotes Gholam Hossein Khan. He is an Indian Historian employed in English East India Company around 1780-1810 in Bengal. He lamented the lower caste. They, the lower caste members were becoming politically prominent. This was evidence of social mobility, availability of talent and money.
Parthasarathy says property rights were also not as insecure as Francois Berner (French physician, 1615-1679) & Adam Smith claimed to be in Asia. Funds were transferred through hundi and line of credit system. Karen Leonard argued that decline of Mughal Empire was due to less banking support.
Part II — Divergence of Britain:
-European Response to Indian Cotton
-State and market: Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire
-From cotton to coal
In Part II, Parthasarathy examines what made Britain lead ahead of India. He says, various powers had failed to protect their local economics or even think about the challenges from Indian cotton market or industry. In 1830’s British Cotton Industry caught up with Indian sub-continent. They had adopted coal. Wide adoption of Coal started to take off across various industries in Britain. Parthasarathy goes into details of Cotton industry giving various levels of accounting for exports. I think you can skip this chapter unless you want to know with extreme depth about various categories of Cotton.
Part III – The Indian Path
-Science and Technology in India, 1600-1800
-Modern Industry in early nineteenth-century India
-Conclusion
Why Science was not in Asia? He says, development of science was key for industrialization in Europe. He quotes Joseph Needham. Joseph Needham, a Sino Scholar from England had written volumes of books examining Science in China. What did Science rise from? He says, experimentation and belief that the natural world is intelligible.
In 17th and 18th century, Indian Sciences made important contributions to Astronomy and Mathematics. He says the Taj Mahal and other monuments during Mughal Empire were impressive. It was an evidence of activities of Science. These architectural masterpieces . . . would not have been possible had Jahangir not encouraged this family of geometers to develop their trigonometric skills into architecture.” Raja Jai Singh, King of Rajput Amber, sponsored Astronomy in India.
Parthasarathy had quoted William Hunter, a Scottish Physicist, Anatomist in earlier chapters.
He says, Tippu Sultan had financed important works in Science within his Kingdom. In Tanjore, Sarasvati Mahal Library was an important library. Tanjore was in Tamil Nadu, India. It was ruled by Serfoji, a King. Serfojji “quotes Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Linnaeus, and Buffon fluently.
The Greatest Library in North India was located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradhesh. He says, Awadh was center of Islamic rational science. A French – Polymath, Claude Martin helped to transfer European knowledge in Awadh. After British Conquest, patronage stopped and erased Science from India.
European visitors to the Mughal Emperor’s court were struck by what one Jesuit described as a delight in the “mechanical arts.” Akbar is credited with several inventions, including a method for the construction of prefabricated, multi- story buildings from iron and wood.
Parthasarathy says, Shipbuilding was of high quality around 19th century in India. In 1811, a storm off the coast in Madras gives evidence for quality of ships in India. There were advances in Rocketry. Mysorean Rockets first under Hyder Ali and his Son, Tippu Sultan were used against British English East India Company. The success of these South Indian rockets inspired William Congreve to experiment with the Mysorean designs in the Woolwich Arsenal in London.
To conclude, In terms of knowledge and technique, In the eighteenth century Indian workers were by no means inferior to those found in Britain or elsewhere in Europe. For more than a hundred years the reasons for the limited industrial development of nineteenth-century India have been debated.
Externalists place primary responsibility upon British colonialism in the subcontinent. Internalists give primacy to social, cultural or economic conditions within India. In this vein, British economist Vera Anstey and Indian historian, Tirthankar Roy fall under internalist camp.
In finishing this book, I see that Christopher Bayly (British Historian specializing in British Imperial history) has been quoted the most across all chapters. The English East India Company ruled India on a profit–loss basis. Around 1850’s and since then, quality of skills, capital fell in India. As the English ran on profit-loss basis, they did not want to invest in Education as it would threaten their superiority. It was also the case that without state assistance of some kind – and the form that this took varied widely from place to place – industrialization was impossible.
We can summarize that, Parthasarathy’s answer to Great Divergence, “Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia did not Grow Rich” is due to lack of right state policies and responses to external pressures.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in West vs East, India, English East India Company, Interest in Economic History.
Deus Vult,
Gottfreid
Parthasarathi's book is laid out in the following way:
Outline:
The Great Divergence:
Part I: Setting the Stage: Europe and Asia before divergence
Part II: Divergence of Britain
Part III: Indian Path:
Part I:
Introduction:
Parthasarathy starts with saying that there were pressures faced in Britain. The Pressures involved competition in cotton industry, invention of steam engine, availability of coal
Parthasarathi introduces how various scholar’s have approached to Great Divergence. There’s three approaches to Great Divergence:
-First one involves, Property Rights (Asian rulers were despotic and could usurp anyone’s property)
-Second one is European Population lower and ability to gain more capital (Malthusian)
-Last one is Max Weber’s Protestant Work ethic (European Rationality)
Parthasarathi challenges european Scientific Culture and uniqueness. He says there were significant activity of Indian Intellectual life in 1800’s.
My own personal thoughts are: Yes, but what did they do? I think, on military wise, Tippu Sultan might have had his economy, military upgrade from French. This happens throughout history. French were hiring English skilled artisans, clock-makers during a time period. Within Tippu’s empire, Indians combined both European and Indian (local) knowledge. They wanted to understand nature.
Parthasarathi qutoes Edward Said’s Orientalism. He said, Said provided thoughts about Asia being not different from Europe. In-fact few scholars perpetuated the difference as, Asia, “other”. Parthasarathi disagrees. He says for Karl Marx, it is capitalism that provided divergence between Europe and Asia.
Parthasarathi argues we must not apply anachronism by fitting parts of history. Many bring categories of industrialization, social concepts before 18th century. In-fact some categories were not developed before 18th century. I think, this is true. As a lay-reader, I might fall into anachronism.
Part I: -Setting the Stage:
-India and the global economy, 1600–1800
-Political institutions and economic life
In this Chapter, Parthasarathi wants to explore and set historical state before getting into his key question, “Why Europe grew richer?”.
Parthasarathi quotes Immanuel Wallerstein, the American Sociologist and Economic historian. Wallerstein says, “The modern world-system took the form of a capitalist world-economy that had its genesis in Europe in the long sixteenth century . . . Since that time the capitalist world-economy has geographically expanded to cover the entire globe.”
As Wallerstein, most scholars believed that in Europe, had its center for Capitalism.
K. N. Chaudhuri, a historian from Birkbeck college, England showed that mercantile sophistication and commercial dynamism predated before the arrival of European merchants.
In 19th century, China and India were hubs of economic activity. China exported porcelain and Silk. This made China incredibly wealthy. India exported cotton to the rest of the world.
Parthasarathy says, India clothed the world. China was more critical that it monopolized world’s output of silver. He says that he is not there to replace Frank’s Sinocentric global system with an Indo-centric version. Sinocentric Global System means, China was the center of Global affairs, superior to every other country.
Before the 17th century - India’s market for cotton included Indian Ocean and regions close to it. Indian cotton were in demand and were readily accepted in Europe. Indian cottons were essential for slaves in slave trade (French slave trade).
Prathasarathi says another market for Indian Cotton was Americas. The Creativity and talent of Indian cotton cloth manufacturers were unsurpassed by anyone in the world. He says that there was a common belief that it was due to low wages in India for cotton manufacturing, they succeeded.
He gives some evidence arguing against this commonly held belief. Indian cotton was consumed around four corners of the world. As incomes and revenues grew in India, many around the Globe tried to imitate it. Britain successfully surpassed it through innovating with their inventions.
K.N Chaudhuri says, Indian manufacturing involved surplus labor leading to low wages. He says there’s not much evidence that productivity of India was higher than that of Britain. It was around 1760’s, new inventions improved spinning in Britain. He goes into details of A’in-i Akbari giving price and wage data on Mughal India. He says, calico weavers earned more than laborers in agriculture. Parthasarathy quotes, Robert C Allen, a british historian who wrote numerous works around Industrial revolution.
Allen’s conclusion was that standards of living were lower in India. He says, this has been challenged on the basis of voluminous data on prices and income collected by Francis Buchanan. Francis Buchanan was a Scottish Physician who made numerous contributions to zoology, botany and geograpgy while living in India. He surveyed several districts of South India around early 19th century. He called, Tippu Sultan, a wonderful projector, and reported that Mysore had succeeded in manufacturing “broad-cloth, paper formed on wires like the European kind, watches, and cutlery.
3: Political Institutions and Economic Life:
In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith shared that nations of Europe were most prosperous. China and India had become stagnant. French physician, Francois Bernier provided an account of Mughal Empire travels. In Francois works, he mentioned that rulers oppressed their people, deprived of their rights and fruits of their labor. Montesquie read this account and wrote laws, customs, manners of orient remain unchanging.
Thomas Malthus argued that checks and balances in society involves famine, diseases to arrest human demographics. This would cause flourishing at times due to controlling Over Population.
He adds and says that Karl Marx, could write with great authority about Indian Society. He says, “Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society.”
In 20th century, In addition to the above two arguments, Max Weber added rationality to the list for divergence between Europeans and Asia. Here Parthasarathy is exploring these assumptions from Weber, He says Indian sub-continent is not different from Europe. Despotic ruler idea originated from Machiavelli’s book on Ottoman Empire, the entire region is controlled by one Master, and everyone else is his slave.
Due to Despotism, agricultures would not invest more in expanding their enterprise, merchants hid their investments and capitals because the Mughal empire owned everything. Parthasarathy has been trying to rebut European arguments against Asia throughout the book.
Irfan Habib, an Indian historian has offered a classic description from Mughal India: “It was inevitable that the actual burden on the peasantry should became so heavy in some areas as to encroach upon their means of survival. Parthasarathy says the despotic view has been discredited. Mughals were, King of Kings. They were power brokers who negotiated with Zamindars and other Local Rulers throughout India.
Parthasarathy clears my doubt about rest of India, it seems like King was extremely wealthy and others did not have a good quality of life. He says, Adam Smith’s critique of India was due to Caste System, most of labor stock had to stick with same occupation.
All Son's followed their Father’s occupation due to Caste, as a result there was no social-mobility. However, Parthasarathy says there were cases in 18th century, that there was mobility among occupations. He disagrees about Caste being a rigid structure and quotes Gholam Hossein Khan. He is an Indian Historian employed in English East India Company around 1780-1810 in Bengal. He lamented the lower caste. They, the lower caste members were becoming politically prominent. This was evidence of social mobility, availability of talent and money.
Parthasarathy says property rights were also not as insecure as Francois Berner (French physician, 1615-1679) & Adam Smith claimed to be in Asia. Funds were transferred through hundi and line of credit system. Karen Leonard argued that decline of Mughal Empire was due to less banking support.
Part II — Divergence of Britain:
-European Response to Indian Cotton
-State and market: Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire
-From cotton to coal
In Part II, Parthasarathy examines what made Britain lead ahead of India. He says, various powers had failed to protect their local economics or even think about the challenges from Indian cotton market or industry. In 1830’s British Cotton Industry caught up with Indian sub-continent. They had adopted coal. Wide adoption of Coal started to take off across various industries in Britain. Parthasarathy goes into details of Cotton industry giving various levels of accounting for exports. I think you can skip this chapter unless you want to know with extreme depth about various categories of Cotton.
Part III – The Indian Path
-Science and Technology in India, 1600-1800
-Modern Industry in early nineteenth-century India
-Conclusion
Why Science was not in Asia? He says, development of science was key for industrialization in Europe. He quotes Joseph Needham. Joseph Needham, a Sino Scholar from England had written volumes of books examining Science in China. What did Science rise from? He says, experimentation and belief that the natural world is intelligible.
In 17th and 18th century, Indian Sciences made important contributions to Astronomy and Mathematics. He says the Taj Mahal and other monuments during Mughal Empire were impressive. It was an evidence of activities of Science. These architectural masterpieces . . . would not have been possible had Jahangir not encouraged this family of geometers to develop their trigonometric skills into architecture.” Raja Jai Singh, King of Rajput Amber, sponsored Astronomy in India.
Parthasarathy had quoted William Hunter, a Scottish Physicist, Anatomist in earlier chapters.
He says, Tippu Sultan had financed important works in Science within his Kingdom. In Tanjore, Sarasvati Mahal Library was an important library. Tanjore was in Tamil Nadu, India. It was ruled by Serfoji, a King. Serfojji “quotes Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Linnaeus, and Buffon fluently.
The Greatest Library in North India was located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradhesh. He says, Awadh was center of Islamic rational science. A French – Polymath, Claude Martin helped to transfer European knowledge in Awadh. After British Conquest, patronage stopped and erased Science from India.
European visitors to the Mughal Emperor’s court were struck by what one Jesuit described as a delight in the “mechanical arts.” Akbar is credited with several inventions, including a method for the construction of prefabricated, multi- story buildings from iron and wood.
Parthasarathy says, Shipbuilding was of high quality around 19th century in India. In 1811, a storm off the coast in Madras gives evidence for quality of ships in India. There were advances in Rocketry. Mysorean Rockets first under Hyder Ali and his Son, Tippu Sultan were used against British English East India Company. The success of these South Indian rockets inspired William Congreve to experiment with the Mysorean designs in the Woolwich Arsenal in London.
To conclude, In terms of knowledge and technique, In the eighteenth century Indian workers were by no means inferior to those found in Britain or elsewhere in Europe. For more than a hundred years the reasons for the limited industrial development of nineteenth-century India have been debated.
Externalists place primary responsibility upon British colonialism in the subcontinent. Internalists give primacy to social, cultural or economic conditions within India. In this vein, British economist Vera Anstey and Indian historian, Tirthankar Roy fall under internalist camp.
In finishing this book, I see that Christopher Bayly (British Historian specializing in British Imperial history) has been quoted the most across all chapters. The English East India Company ruled India on a profit–loss basis. Around 1850’s and since then, quality of skills, capital fell in India. As the English ran on profit-loss basis, they did not want to invest in Education as it would threaten their superiority. It was also the case that without state assistance of some kind – and the form that this took varied widely from place to place – industrialization was impossible.
We can summarize that, Parthasarathy’s answer to Great Divergence, “Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia did not Grow Rich” is due to lack of right state policies and responses to external pressures.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in West vs East, India, English East India Company, Interest in Economic History.
Deus Vult,
Gottfreid
December 11, 2012
Nice addition to the divergence literature...I ended up liking it better than Pomeranz's book. Mainly because human agency plays a big role in this book - divergence makes more sense to me as the result of the pressures and conditions that affected the decisions people made, rather than as the result of where coal was buried. Parthasarathi looks at India and Britain here, and argues that in many ways the two places were remarkably similar. India, however, was the world leader in producing and exporting cotton textiles, and Britain wanted its own products to compete. So this need to compete with Indian textiles created certain pressures in Britain, and the government of Britain was willing to protect burgeoning British industries, and thus, events took place which led to the Industrial Revolution.
The book is very readable too. If you read one book on divergence this year...
The book is very readable too. If you read one book on divergence this year...
September 4, 2019
Eğer Hindistan’ın tarihi, kumaşın özelliklerini, Hindistan için önemini öğrenmek istiyorsanız okuyun derim. Kitabın isminden yola çıkarak daha genel bilgi sahibi olmayı bekledim ancak Hindistan’ın dışına çıkamadı kitap. Yoğun sayısal karşılaştırmalar okudum, yazar sürekli Hindistan’ın aslında ekonomik olarak Avrupa’dan farklı olmadığını ispat etmeye çalıştı, ben ikna olmadım.
Bu konuda okuma yapmak istiyorsanız Ulusların Düşüşü: Güç, Zenginlik ve Yoksulluğun Kökenleri kitabını tavsiye ederim.
Bu konuda okuma yapmak istiyorsanız Ulusların Düşüşü: Güç, Zenginlik ve Yoksulluğun Kökenleri kitabını tavsiye ederim.
May 7, 2019
Not worth the trouble. The author is trying to swim against the tide using anecdotal evidence. Not good enough.
September 18, 2014
Very interesting, persuasive book asking the reader to stop looking for what intrinsic factors made Europe "succeed." A better approach, according to Parthasarathi's argument, is to examine the overall social, political, and economic context that stimulated the various choices and decisions that individuals and governments made.
Parthasarathi emphasizes the role of state action in causing the differences that emerged, and he argues persuasively. I would guard against haphazardly applying that result to our modern political and economic debates (i.e, because protectionism may have played a role in the development of new textile-production technologies, we should support repealing NAFTA), but really, most economic arguments should *start* from history, rather than pure theory or modeling.
Parthasarathi emphasizes the role of state action in causing the differences that emerged, and he argues persuasively. I would guard against haphazardly applying that result to our modern political and economic debates (i.e, because protectionism may have played a role in the development of new textile-production technologies, we should support repealing NAFTA), but really, most economic arguments should *start* from history, rather than pure theory or modeling.
November 27, 2020
Kitabın isminin birebir içeriğini yansıtmadığı eleştirilerine katılıyorum ancak hiçbir kitap ismi yüzünden iyi ya da kötü diye değerlendirilemez.
Kitabın ana ekseni 18 ve 19 yy larda İngiltere ve Hindistanın pamuk ticareti. Yazar bu konu üzerinde detaylı bilgi sahibi ve birçok tarihçi ve ekonomistin o dönemi incelerken nasıl basmakalıp bilgileri sorgulamadan yazdıklarına harika örnekler veriyor.
Daron Acemoğlu ve James Robinsonun çok satan Ulusların Düşüşü kitabını da aynı dönemde okuyorum. Açıkcası orada da basmakalıp düşünceler yığınının detaylarla harmanlanışından başka bir şey bulamadım henüz. Ama adamlar neoliberal ve kendi deyimleri ile "kurumları" var! Okuyacaksın...
Bu kitap bence kesinlikle çok iyi, umarım Osmanlı ekonomisi ile ilgili de benzer bir çalışma yapılır..
Kitabın ana ekseni 18 ve 19 yy larda İngiltere ve Hindistanın pamuk ticareti. Yazar bu konu üzerinde detaylı bilgi sahibi ve birçok tarihçi ve ekonomistin o dönemi incelerken nasıl basmakalıp bilgileri sorgulamadan yazdıklarına harika örnekler veriyor.
Daron Acemoğlu ve James Robinsonun çok satan Ulusların Düşüşü kitabını da aynı dönemde okuyorum. Açıkcası orada da basmakalıp düşünceler yığınının detaylarla harmanlanışından başka bir şey bulamadım henüz. Ama adamlar neoliberal ve kendi deyimleri ile "kurumları" var! Okuyacaksın...
Bu kitap bence kesinlikle çok iyi, umarım Osmanlı ekonomisi ile ilgili de benzer bir çalışma yapılır..
February 24, 2013
Prasannnnan takes on every divergence-writin' historian suckah in this book, which even deals a gutterpunch to Pomeranz. It wasn't ecology, coal, and the necessity of innovation which made Britain pull forward. Nope. Nice try, Ken. It was basically the British state was so goddamn interventionist and basically called the shots (counter Adam Smithy) via protectionism and other shit, which eventually decimated the South Asian textiles trade, etc. Pretty good, but he might be imbuing the Indian states with a bit more badassitude than the evidence might suggest.
March 5, 2021
First of all, the title of the book does not correspond to the content of the book. The author does not compare Europe and Asia but Great Britain and India (more specifically North India). Moreover, it is a comparison focusing on a single subject which is cotton manufacturing. So if you are interested in English, Indian and cotton history read this book.
September 8, 2025
The title itself is not fully accurate; this book describes the economic and development divergence between Britain and India for the most part (>80%), with small snippets about China, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and a couple other European countries.
I do think there are many strong points that the book offers and I learned a great deal of industrial and trade history from this book. I think that far too much time was spent on cotton in the beginning, and I could have understood the argument without reading that many pages on it. I initially was not a fan because of this, but I appreciated the Third and final part of the book, and therefore am glad to have read it. Having an Indian background myself, it was nice to learn parts of Indian history that are not often taught or discussed, and it was even nicer to see an academic work acknowledge the erasure of the "middle" where India was an important part of the world economy.
I do think there are many strong points that the book offers and I learned a great deal of industrial and trade history from this book. I think that far too much time was spent on cotton in the beginning, and I could have understood the argument without reading that many pages on it. I initially was not a fan because of this, but I appreciated the Third and final part of the book, and therefore am glad to have read it. Having an Indian background myself, it was nice to learn parts of Indian history that are not often taught or discussed, and it was even nicer to see an academic work acknowledge the erasure of the "middle" where India was an important part of the world economy.
April 25, 2019
Kitabın adı daha genel bir Doğu-Batı kıyaslamasını ve çatışmasını andırırken, esasında Britanya imparatorluğu nun Hindistan hakimiyeti üzerine bir kitap. Eser bu hakimiyeti ağırlıklı olarak ekonomik esaslar üzerinden değerlendiriyor. Yer yer Doğu da Osmanlı, batı da ise Fransa üzerinden ekonomik datayı genişletse de, nihai amaç her defasında Hindistan'ın sömürülmesi merkezinde. İçerik çoğu zaman fazlaca detaylı ekonomik verilerle sıkıcı oluyor ve yazarın her yorumunda konuyu nereye getirmek istediği çok belli. Dolayısı ile amaç 'tümevarmak'tansa, bir yerde 'tümdengelmek' oluyor. Hintli bir yazarın eseri olduğu düşünüldüğünde, bu yaklaşım bile 'Doğulu' bir bakış açısı ile yazıldığının ironik bir tezahürü oluyor.
September 17, 2023
Prasannan Parthasarathi boldly challenges much of conventional, not only Western but global historiography that unquestioningly posits Western economic dominance as due to any innate superiority in intellect, strength, diligence, or business acumen, instead underlining how the mare of free trade capitalism first had to be supported by state mercantile policies of which even a tenth would lead to accusations of communist planned economy in today's climate. It's the kind of critical historical writing we need more of, even if Parthasarathi's conclusions are ultimately perhaps not as groundbreaking and definitive as he first implies and buttressed on at times insular-seeming particularities such as the differing states of deforestation in the UK, Japan, and India or average ages of wedlock.
December 13, 2019
Kitabı satın alırken ve okumaya başlarken, Batıda kapitalizmin ilk aşamalarının ve aynı dönemde Asyadaki durumun bir karşılaştırmasını okuyacağımı ummuştum. Kitap ile ilgili değerlendirmelerim şu şekildedir, Yazarın Asyadan kastettiği çoğunlukla Hindistan'dır. Hindistan dışında çok az Çin, İran ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'ndan bahsedilmiştir. Hindistan'ın geri kalmasını Britanya'nın kolonyal politikalarına bağlamış olan yazar, Hindistan'ın tarihsel olarak bilimsel bilgi üretim ve uygulaması konusunda ileri bir ülke ve toplum olduğunu öne sürmektedir. 17-19. yüzyıl Hindistan pamuklu kumaş imalatı ve ticareti ile ilgilenmeyenler için vakit kaybı.
February 13, 2025
Gotta love a snappy title (the book primarily focuses on Britain and the Indian Subcontinent). It's a fantastic argument which challenges readers to consider different ways of measuring ideas of success. To paraphrase Parthasarathi, India was not a failure against the yardstick of industrialism--the country did not experience the same pressures which forced Britain to industrialize so rapidly. The concept of a "great divergence" is heavily entrenched in Western ideas of progress and exceptionalism, and Parthasarathi refutes this by encouraging historians to evaluate, instead, the similarities between the regions in order to better understand the idea of an economic divergence.
February 24, 2018
Based on the Great Divergence's method, this book examines why India fell behind. Intriguing perspective yet it feels like it lacks the true reason. Instead I felt the book blamed the British too much on India's backwardness instead of looking to the reason why India though certain regions were prosperous never unified and when it did, the Mughals didn't do enough of a good job in governing the economic situation.
May 31, 2022
Pamuk, kömür ve demir üretimi üzerinden dünyadaki güç dengesinin batı lehine nasıl değiştiğini anlatıyor. Yazar Hintli olduğu için çoğunlukla Hindistan ve Britanya ilişkileri inceleniyor. Britanya'nın Adam Smith'in liberal felsefesinin öncesinde korumacı ticaret politikalarıyla nasıl geliştiğini anlatması özellikle ilgi çekici.
February 9, 2025
Covering the same period we’ve been covering all semester (I’m starting to think we’re using historiography as a control so we can focus on method) but this time it was from the perspective of India so that’s a plus
July 15, 2014
An excellent revisionist book dealing with the Great Divergence between Europe and Asia. Parthasarathi shows how the conventional modes of analyzing this process is Euro-centric and outdated, especially with fresh new research in overlooked areas of scientific and economic development in India between 1600 and 1800. This book totally reworked my imagination of India in those centuries. A minor drawback of the book would be the copious details that the author provides on trade, prices and types of different goods. Unless one is interested in so narrow a topic, those facts would overwhelm even a student of history, and it is best to skim through them.
July 15, 2012
A superb deconstruction of the 'clever little England' theory of world history. Full of fascinating detail on the advanced and prosperous state of the Indian economies and intellectual life before the onset of the imperial period, with its wholesale abandonment of education and industry.
Has a serious (implicit) lesson for modern polities (like Britain) that have taken the de-industrialising path.
I found this a valuable addition to Eric Mielants' The Origins of Capitalism and 'The Rise of the West' (Temple UP 2007)
Has a serious (implicit) lesson for modern polities (like Britain) that have taken the de-industrialising path.
I found this a valuable addition to Eric Mielants' The Origins of Capitalism and 'The Rise of the West' (Temple UP 2007)
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March 5, 2019A revisionist book that shows how protectionism and state intervention have allowed England to dominate international markets and become a dominant capitalistic economic actor.
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