The Great Gap or Long Divergence, and Asian Revisionism in Historical Sociology

Author

Assistant professor kharazmi university

10.22034/jsi.2024.562069.1623
Abstract
One of the basic concerns in historical sociology is how the West developed with an emphasis on Britain. Despite the current belief that the time for such discussions has passed, this question is still one of the most basic and lively questions in various debates in historical sociology. Although Orientalism influences the current literature in this field, but it is totally different from what has been popularized under the title of Orientalism in Iran. This article aims to introduce one of the most controversial theories in the last two decades, which has simultaneously affected the fields of economic history and historical sociology. First, it is tried to explain the theoretical foundations of the Asian revisionism (California School) and its relationship with the theory of the great Divergence, then the empirical studies that have been carried out in the last two decades in this field are examined, and finally, some of the most important criticisms of the above theory are reviewed. Also, in a critical discussion, we examine the relationship of this current of thought in historical sociology with Foucault's view that dominates some works of historical sociology in Iran.
 

Keywords

Subjects


Acemoglu, D. and James Robinson (2012).Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity and poverty,( London).
Adshead, S. A. M. (2004).T’ang China. The Rise of the East in World History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Allen .R. (2011)."Technology and the Great Divergence," Economics Series Working Papers 548, (University of Oxford, Department of Economics).
Allen R. (2009).The British Industrial Revolution in global perspective, (Cambridge).
Allen, R. &Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Ma, Debin& Moll-Murata, Christine &Zanden, Jan Luiten van, (2009)."Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738-1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India," CEI Working Paper Series 2009-03, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
Brenner, R. , Isett, C. (2002).‘England’s Divergence from China’s Yangzi Delta: Property Relations, Micro-economics and Patterns of Development’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 61 ⁄2 609–62.
Broadberry, Stephen( 2007).Monetary and real aspects of the Great Divergence between Europe and Asia, Working Paper on the Global Economic History Network (GEHN) , accessible at www. lse. ac. uk.
Broadberry, Stephen and Bishnupriya Gupta. (2006).The early modern Great Divergence: Wages, prices and economic development in Europe and Asia, 500–800. Economic History Review 59.
-Bryant, J. (2006) , ‘The West and the Rest Revisited: Debating Capitalist Origins, European Colonialism, and the Advent of Modernity’, Canadian Journal of Sociology⁄CahiersCanadiens de Sociologie, 31.
-Bryant, J. (2008) , ‘A New Sociology for a New History? Further Critical Thoughts on the Eurasian Similarity and the Great Divergence Theses’, Canadian Journal of Sociology⁄CahiersCanadiens de Sociologie, 33: 119–85.
-Chao, K. (1986) , Man and Land in Chinese History. An Economic Analysis (Stanford: Stanford University Press.
-Chao, K. with the assistance of Chao, J. (1977) , The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China (Cambridge, MA⁄London: Harvard University Press).economic power, Cambridge.
Clark .Gregory, (2007).A farewell to alms. A brief economic history of the world, Princeton/Oxford.
deVries ,Jan, (2008).The industrious revolution. Consumer behavior and the household economy,
deVries. Jan (2008).The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Demand and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press).
-Elvin, M. (1973) , The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
-Emigh. R. (2005).“The Great Debates: Transitions to Capitalisms. ” Pp. 355-380 in Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology, edited by Julia Adams, Elisabeth Clemens, and Ann Shola Orloff. Durham: Duke University Press.
Frank, A. G (1998) ,ReOrient. Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley⁄LosAngeles⁄London: California University Press).
Goldstone, J. (2008) , Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History, 1500–1850 (New York: The McGraw Hill Companies.
Goldstone, J (2002).‘Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History. Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the Industrial Revolution’, Journal of World History, 13: 323–89.
Goldstone, Jack A. (2016).Great Divergence and Great Convergence in a Global Perspective. 2016. Social Evolution & History, Vol. 15 No. 2, September, 194–200.
Goldstone, Jack, (2013).War, capital, and wages. A new economic theory of “the Great Divergence”, in: International Journal of Asian Studies 10, 1.
Goldstone, Jack. (2008).Capitalist origins, the advent of modernity, and coherent explanation: A response to Joseph M. Bryant. Canadian Journal of Sociology 33. 119-133.
Goody, J. (2004) , Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Grinin, Leonid and Andrey Korotayev,( 2015).Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A global in: Journal of Global History 4, 3 / 379–404.
 
Jin, Dengjian . (2016).The Great Knowledge Transcendence. The Rise of Western Science and Technology Reframed, PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.
Kuran, timur. ).2012).The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hoffman ,Philip (2015) , Why did Europe conquer the world?, Princeton University Press.
Jones, E. (1981) , The European Miracle. Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Langlois, R (. 2008) , The Closing of the Sociological Mind, Canadian Journal of Sociology⁄CahiersCanadiens de Sociologie, 33 : 134–48.
Maddison, Angus (2005).Measuring and Interpreting World Economic Performance, 500– 200. Review of Income and Wealth 51-1-51.
Madisson, A. (2007) , Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030. Essays in Macro-Economic History (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Mann, M. (1993) , The Sources of Social Power, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marks, R. (2002) , The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative (Lanham: Rowman⁄Littlefield).
Mielants Eric (2007).The origins of capitalism and the ‘rise of the West’, Philadelphia.
Mokyr, Joel . (2016).A culture of growth. Origins of the modern economy, Princeton/Oxford.
Mokyr, Joel (2009) , the enlightened economy. An economic history of Britain 1700–1850,London.
Mokyr, Joel. 2013. Cultural entrepreneurs and the origins of modern economic growth. Scandinavian Economic History Review. Vol. 61, No. 1.
Mokyr. joel. (2016).A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Princeton University Press.
Morris ,Ian (2010).Why the West rules - for now. The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future, London.
North ,D. John Wallis and Barry Weingast (,2009).Violence and social orders. A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. :Cambridge University Press.
Pamuk ,Sevket and Jeffrey Williamson2009, Ottoman de-industrialization, 1800–1913
Parthasarathi ,P. (2011).Why Europe grew rich and Asia did not. Global economic divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge.
Pomeranz, K. (2000).The Great Divergence. Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Popov. V. (2014).Mixed Fortunes, An Economic History of China, Russia, and the West. y Oxford University Press.
Rosenthal j. and Roy Bin Wong, (2011).Before and beyond divergence. The politics of economic change in China and Europe,Cambridge Mass. /London.
Studer ,R. (2015).The Great Divergence reconsidered. Europe, India, and the rise to global Economic Power. .Cambridge University Press.
vanZanden.J (2008).The road to the Industrial Revolution: hypotheses and conjectures about the medieval origins of the European Miracle, in: Journal of Global History 3, 3 /, 327–359.
Vries. P. (2013).Escaping poverty. The origins of modern economic growth, Vienna and Göttingen.
Vries, P. (2010).The California School and Beyond- How to Study the Great Divergence, History Compass Volume 8 issue 7.
Vries, P. (2015).state, Economy and the Great Divergence (Great Britain and china, 1680s–1850).Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Vries. P. (2016).What We do and do not know about the Great Divergence at the beginning of 2016. (             https: //www. researchgate. net/publication/290920219).
Wallerstein, I. (2011).The modern world-system IV. Centrist liberalism triumphant, 1789–1914. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weiss, L. & Hobson, J. (1995).States and Economic Development. A Comparative Historical Analysis (Oxford⁄Cambridge: Polity Press).
Wong, R. B. (1997).China Transformed. Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca⁄London: Cornell University Press).
Wood .E. (2002).The origin of capitalism. A longer view,( London/New York).
Wrigley, E. A. (1998).Continuity, Chance and Change. The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Wrigley, E. A. (2006).The transition to an advanced organic economy: Half a millennium of English agriculture. Economic History Review 59 (3) :435– 80.