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Cambridge University Press978-1-107-00030-8 - Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global EconomicDivergence, 1600–1850Prasannan ParthasarathiFrontmatterMore information

|Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not

Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer

to the classic question of why Europe industrialized from the late eight-

eenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of

India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eight-

eenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike

than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing econ-

omies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competi-

tive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies

and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views,

which hold that divergence occurred because Europe possessed superior

markets, rationality, science or institutions. It offers instead a ground-

breaking rereading of global economic development that ranges from

India, Japan and China to Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire and

from the textile and coal industries to the roles of science, technology and

the state.

prasannan parthasarathi is Associate Professor in the Department

of History at Boston College. His previous publications include The

Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South

India, 1720–1800 (Cambridge, 2001) and The Spinning World: A Global

HistoryofCottonTextiles,1200–1850 (co-editedwithGiorgioRiello,2009).

http://www.cambridge.org/9781107000308

http://www.cambridge.org




Why Europe Grew Rich

and Asia Did Not:

Global Economic

Divergence, 1600–1850pra sannan parthasarath i






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# Prasannan Parthasarathi 2011

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First published 2011

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Parthasarathi, Prasannan.

Why Europe grew rich and Asia did not : global economic divergence,1600–1850 / Prasannan Parthasarathi.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-107-00030-8 (Hardback) – ISBN 978-0-521-16824-3 (Paperback)

1. Economic development–Europe–History. 2. Economic development–Asia–History. 3. Europe–Economic conditions. 4. Asia–Economic conditions. I. Title.

HC240.P2485 2011

330.94002–dc222011002484

ISBN 978-1-107-00030-8 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-16824-3 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

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To Juliet






Contents

List of figures page viii

List of maps ix

List of tables x

Acknowledgments xi

List of abbreviations xiv

Maps xv

1 Introduction 1

Part I Setting the stage: Europe and Asia before divergence

2 India and the global economy, 1600–1800 21

3 Political institutions and economic life 51

Part II The divergence of Britain

4 The European response to Indian cottons 89

5 State and market: Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire 115

6 From cotton to coal 151

Part III The Indian path

7 Science and technology in India, 1600–1800 185

8 Modern industry in early nineteenth-century India 223

9 Conclusion 263

Notes to the text 270

Bibliography 324

Index 353

vii






Figures

2.1 Detail of an end-panel of a pha-nung, skirt cloth,

Coromandel Coast for the Thai market, eighteenth

century page 28

2.2 Man’s military coat or Su’a senakut, Coromandel

Coast for the Thai market, eighteenth century 29

2.3 Kain sambagi, skirt or shoulder cloth, Coromandel

Coast for the Indonesian market, late eighteenth

century 30

5.1 Swatches of Blackburn cloth woven for the West

Africa market, 1751 135

5.2 Exports of British cotton cloth to West Africa as a

proportion of total cotton cloth exports, 1751–1807 136

6.1 Detail of a view of the coal depot at Ying-tih-heen, in

Shaouchow foo (Guangdong), late eighteenth century 163

8.1 Distribution of British great inventors by level

of education and birth cohort 260

viii






Maps

1 India in the eighteenth century page xv

2 Europe in 1815 xvi

3 The Middle East in the eighteenth century xvii

4 China and Southeast Asia in the eighteenth century xviii

ix






Tables

2.1 Sales of cotton cloth by British slave traders in

West Africa by decade, 1699–1808 page 25

2.2 Slave purchases in West Africa by decade, 1698–1807 25

2.3 Average current and constant prices of selected

textiles in English retailers’ inventories, 1660–1738 36

2.4 Grain earnings in the mid-eighteenth century 39

2.5 Daily grain wages in eighteenth-century South India 44

5.1 Cotton prices in Cairo, 1687–1797 120

5.2 An index of cotton and linen cloth prices in Cairo,

1700–1789 121

5.3 Distribution of cotton workers in Rouen, 1727 149

x






Acknowledgments

I have incurred many debts in the research and writing of this book.

Grants from Boston College supported several research trips to Britain

and India. Fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies

and the Dibner Institute and a sabbatical from Boston College freed me

from my day-to-day academic responsibilities and gave me the time to

write much of the book. TheDibner also providedwonderful space and

congenial company for which I am grateful to George Smith, Bonnie

Edwards, Trudy Kontoff and Rita Dempsey. While writing this book

I was also a member of the Global Economic History Network

(GEHN), which gave me many opportunities to present my ideas to

gatherings of knowledgeable and engaged colleagues. I am grateful to

Patrick O’Brien for including me in that enterprise.

I benefited from the comments of three anonymous readers for

Cambridge University Press. William Ashworth, Robin Fleming,

Kevin Kenny, Rebecca Nedostup, Sarah Ross, Subashree Rangaswami,

Patrick O’Brien andGiorgio Riello read and commented upon portions

of the manuscript. Juliet Schor gave a close reading to the whole work

in its final stages.

I presented portions of the book at seminars, workshops or con-

ferences where I benefited from the responses of participants at Boston

College, the London School of Economics, the Dibner Institute,

Cambridge University, the University of Pennsylvania, Istanbul

University, Sussex University, the Indian Institute of Technology

(Madras), the annual meeting of the Economic History Society at

Leicester, the International Economic History Association Congress

at Helsinki, the International Congress of Historical Sciences at

Amsterdam, the Anglo-American Conference on History, and meet-

ings in Oxford, Leiden, Padua and Pune. I thank the organizers of

these events and am especially grateful to the helpful suggestions

that I received from Aashish Velkar, Maxine Berg, Kent Deng, Ken

Pomeranz, Tine Bruland, Beverly Lemire, Kapil Raj, David Ludden,

xi






Bob Nichols, Robert Duplessis, Huw Bowen, Chella Rajan, Richard

Grove, Vinita Damodaran, Filippo Osella, Jeff Horn, Sevket Pamuk,

Giorgio Riello, Patrick O’Brien, the late Larry Epstein, Tirthankar

Roy, David Washbrook, Gareth Stedman Jones, Norbert Peabody,

Harold Cook, Dhruv Raina and Deepak Kumar.

The staffs of the British Library, the Manchester Central Library, the

John Rylands Library (Manchester), the Bolton Central Library,

the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Archives of the Royal

Society of Arts, the Tamil Nadu Archives, the Burndy Library and

Houghton Library were of the greatest assistance. I owe a special

thanks to Mary Ginsberg of the British Museum who tracked down

“A view of the coal depot at Ying-tih-heen, in Shaouchow foo” for me

to see and then sent me a photograph of it that she took herself. The

staff of the Boston College libraries never failed me and I am deeply

indebted to Anne Kenny and Daniel Saulean of the Interlibrary Loan

Departmentwho suppliedmewith copies of even the rarest publications.

At Cambridge University Press Michael Watson supported the

project from its earliest days and his editorial hand improved the book

enormously. For this I am deeply grateful. Chloe Howell and Jo Breeze

made the process of production and publication a smooth one and

Diane Ilott was an exemplary copy-editor. Pierce Butler and Susan

Holbert compiled a superb index.

Thanks are due to Hidetaka Hirota of Boston College who trans-

lated materials for me from Japanese. I also benefited from the

suggestions of undergraduates in my “Wealth and Poverty of Nations”

and graduate students in my “Introduction to Global History” who

read early versions of the manuscript. I am also grateful for the

friendship and support of my colleagues in the history department at

Boston College, especially Peter Weiler, Lynn Johnson, Jim Cronin,

Rebecca Nedostup, Robin Fleming, Kevin Kenny and David Quigley.

While at the Dibner Institute I learned a great deal from my almost

daily conversations with David Cahan as well as from George Smith

and Conevery Valencius. In London, the department of economic

history at the London School of Economics welcomed me for two

extended stays. I am grateful to Patrick O’Brien for making those

visits possible and to Giorgio Riello for extensive intellectual engage-

ment as well as continued friendship and support. I thank John Styles

for showing me the cloth swatches in the London Foundling Museum.

He and Beverly Lemire taught me a great deal about British cottons.

xii Acknowledgments






In Cambridge, I always received a warm welcome from Jennifer Davis

and the late Raj Chandavarkar. I am sorry that I will not be able to

share this work with Raj, who I still miss terribly.

Closer to home, many friendships sustained me during this project.

Bernard and Louise Lown have been unflagging with their support

and encouragement, as have Eric Fernald and Navjeet Bal. Vicky

Steinitz, Elliot Mishler and others in the Biolab fight carried me

through good times and bad, as havemy friends in BostonMobilization,

Newton Dialogues and the 25% Solution. John Maher has been a good

friend throughout.

My greatest debt is to my family. I am grateful for the love of my

parents as well as that of my sister Ranja, Dan, Maya, Jimmy, Sharon,

Oliver and Jon. Krishna and Sulakshana have made so many things

worthwhile and they were always patient with my preoccupation.

To Juliet, who is the love of my life, I dedicate this work.

Acknowledgments xiii






Abbreviations

APAC Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections

BL British Library

CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History

IESHR Indian Economic and Social History Review

JAS Journal of Asian Studies

JEH Journal of Economic History

MAS Modern Asian Studies

P&P Past & Present

PRO Public Record Office

TNA The National Archives of the United Kingdom

xiv






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