Lecture 10.3:The Great Divergence

Why did Europe industrialize first given China’s comparable economic resources and organizational skills?

J.M.W. Turner, Rain, Steam, Speed (1844)

Preindustrial ecology

• Food, fiber, fuel, and shelter

• Land, labor, and machines

• Wind and water

Scarcity of land and energy created an ecological roadblock throughout the Old World

Joseph Wright, A Blacksmith’s Shop (1771)

Europe’s ecological escape:(1) colonies

• 150,000 tons of sugar per year imported into Britain

• This equals 571,842,460,000 calories for human consumption, enough to feed 627,000 people 2,500 calories a day for a year

• 1 acre of land produces 471 kg wheat, or 235 kg flour, yearly

• Since 1 kg flour provides 3,400 calories, 1 acre provides 799,000 calories a year

• 150,000 tons of sugar = 715,000 acres of wheat

• The extra calories your oxen need from hay raises this to 858,000 acres

• The use of the three-field system (letting land lie fallow to recoup nutrients) raises it again, to 1,215,500 acres

Q: Exactly how much land in Britain did Caribbean sugar imports make available for other purposes?

Europe’s ecological escape:(2) coal

• Population growth

• Deforestation

• Coal deposits

• Steam engines

• Railroads

Fortuitous ecological factors gave Britain advantages over China that solved the energy bottleneck plaguing all parts of the Old World

Steam engines

Textile mills

Smokestacks

China’s downward ecological spiral

• Population growth

• Deforestation

• Land pressure

• Price inflation

• Partible inheritance

• Rootlessness and revolt

Taiping Rebellion

• The ecological roots of rootlessness and revolt

• Population explosion vs. scholar-gentry leadership

Showdownat

Guangzhou

Opium War (1839-42)

• A symptom, not a cause, of China’s decline

• Not only dynastic but civilizational