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A. G. Frank and the Greatness of the East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Peer Vries
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Type
Europe and Asia: Two contrasting views
Information
European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1999 , pp. 323 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1999

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References

1.Landes, D.S. (1998) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Why Some are so Rich and Some Poor (New York) 513.Google Scholar
2. Frank does not substantiate this statement by presenting price data for Europe and Asia. That is a pity because not everybody would agree with his thesis. Compare for example Goldstone, J. (1991) Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley and Oxford) 359–362 and 368–375.Google Scholar
3.Pomeranz, K. (1997) A New World Of Growth: Markets, Ecology, Coercion, And Industrialization In Global Perspective (unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar
4. For similar statements see for example pp. 263, 266, 273, 276, 283, 304–305, 318, 349.Google Scholar
5. For further explanation of this concept, which is introduced in the debate by Mark Elvin, see Elvin, M. (1973) The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford) and M. Elvin (1996) Another History. Essays on China from a European Perspective (Broadway, Australia) 20–63.Google Scholar
6.Bairoch, P. (1993) Economics and World History. Myths and Paradoxes (New York) 101–110; A. Maddison (1983) A comparison of levels of GDP in developed and developing countries, 1700–1980. Journal of Economic History 43, 27–41; F. Braudel (1979) Civilisation matérielle & économie et capitalisme. XVe- Xviii siecle. Ill. Le temps du monde (Paris) 460–461.Google Scholar
7.Goldstone, J. A. (1998) The problem of the ‘early modern world’. The Journal of Social and Economic History of the Orient, 40, 1–36.Google Scholar
8.Adas, M. (1989) Part one: Before the Industrial Revolution. In Machines As Measures Of Men: Science, Technology, And Ideologies Of Western Dominance (Ithaca) 17–127. See, for China, J. Osterhammel (1989) Erster Teil: Annährungen. In China und die Weltgesellschaft (München) 1–40; R. Murphey (1977) The Outsiders. The Western Experience in India and China (Ann Arbor) chapter 9.Google Scholar
9. See, for example, Bairoch, P. (1973) Commerce international et genèse de la revolution industrielle Anglaise. Annales ESC 28, 541–571; P. Bairoch (1973) Economics and World History, 80–87; P. K. O'Brien (1990) European industrialization from the voyages of discovery to the industrial revolution. In H. Pohl (ed) The European Discovery of the World and its Economic Effects on Pre-industrial Society: 1500–1800 (Stuttgart) 154–177.Google Scholar
10. If there existed something of a real world system in the early modern world, I think it did not exist in the field of the production and distribution of goods, but in the field of the production and distribution of ideas, and – to a lesser extent – in the exchange of people.Google Scholar
11.Murphey, R., The Outsiders. The Western Experience in India and China (Ann Arbor) 204, see chapter 11. Compare V. D. Lippit (1987) The Economic Development of China (New York and London) 45 and 55–65.Google Scholar
12. Compare Rosenbloom, J. L. (1998) < eh.res.@eh.net > Thursday 05 28, 1998.+Thursday+05+28,+1998.>Google Scholar
13. For Elvin's point of view see his The Pattern of the Chinese Past, chapters 13 and 17 and Another History, 20–63. For an analysis of Needham's ideas regarding this problem see Cohen, H. F. (1994) The Scientific Revolution. A Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago and London) 439–488.Google Scholar
14. Compare Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, 175–178 and de Vries, J. (1984) European Urbanization 1500–1800 (London) 348–350.Google Scholar
15.Jacob, M. C. (1997) Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West (New York & Oxford).Google Scholar
16. For data on China see Lavely, W. and Wong, R. Bin (1998) Revising the Malthusian narrative: the comparative study of population dynamics in Late Imperial China. The Journal of Asian Studies 57, 714–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. See, for example, Richards, J. F. (year) Early modern India and world history. Journal of World History (1997), 197–209, 207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Macfarlane, A. (1997) The Savage Wars of Peace. Japan and England and the Malthusian Trap (Oxford). That this is the case in Japan can be inferred from figures Frank himself gives on pages 168 and 170 and from his remark on page 106: ‘After that (the year 1721) all sources show population levelling off in Japan.’Google Scholar
19.Lippit, , The Economic Development of China, 78–99.Google Scholar
20. For an analysis of income distribution in early modern Europe see van Zanden, J. L. (1995) Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: western Europe during the early modern period. Economic History Review, 48, 643–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21. That is, if it exists. I have not been able to trace where Goldstone formulates this generalization. Frank only refers to Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion, which is a book of some 600 pages!Google Scholar
22. Of course it all depends on what you call an agrarian society, but there a several pre-industrial societies where population growth did not imply a lowering of real wages and effective demand. For data on real wages in the early modem Dutch Republic – and England – see Van der Woude, A. and de Vries, J. (1997) The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge) Chapter 12. For data on income and wealth in early modern Europe see J. L. van Zanden (1995) Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: western Europe during the early modern period. Economic History Review, 48, 643–664.Google Scholar
23. Only then did Europe really ‘undercut’ the Chinese in some productive sectors. And even then the Chinese market was never really flooded by Western goods. See, for example, Murphey, The Outsiders, Chapters 7 to 12.Google Scholar
24. For what I think is a very convincing critique of the high-level equilibrium trap explanation of China's stagnation see Lippit, The Economic Development of China, 68–73 and 85–86.Google Scholar
25. See for example Bairoch, Economics and World History, 72–79 and the literature mentioned in notes 1 and 3 of that text.Google Scholar
26.Wong, R.B. (1997) China Transformed. Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca and London).Google Scholar
27.Landes, , The wealth and Poverty of Nations, 516.Google Scholar
28.Landes, , The wealth and Poverty of Nations, XXI: A third school would argue that the West–Rest dichotomy is simply false. In the large stream of world history Europe is a latecomer and free rider on the earlier achievements of others. That is patently incorrect. As the historical record shows, for the last thousand years, Europe (the West) has been the prime mover of development and modernity.Google Scholar
29. To give only a few examples. Cohen in his book on the Scientific Revolution does not explicitly reject the use of the concept ‘Scientific Revolution’ as Frank wants his readers to believe. See Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, 500–501. Compare Frank, ReORIENT, 192. Cohen nowhere suggests, as again Frank wants his readers to believe, that there would be a direct relationship between the ‘Scientific Revolution’ and the Industrial Revolution. See, for example, Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, 195, 427–428. Cohen's book is about the Scientific Revolution not about the industrial one. Compare Frank ReORIENT, 188–192. The fundamental thesis of Braudel's trilogy Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme is that only in Europe ‘… la construction (of capitalism.) réussit.’ See part two of the trilogy', Le jeux de l'échange, 519. Frank passes this over and only quotes Braudel as somebody who can be brought in line with his thesis that there were no significant institutional differences between Europe and Asia. See Frank, ReORIENT, 213–214. Bairoch is quoted with approval when he compares GNP per capita in various civilizations at the end of the early modern period and concludes there was something of an economic parity, but when he claims intercontinental trade accounted for only a small part of European GNP at this same moment in time – as you will remember income from trade is part of GNP – his calculations are dismissed out of hand. Compare Frank, ReORIENT, 171–174 with 41–42 and 295–296. I would be surprised if, for example, Goldstone, Wong or Elvin would fully agree with the way their work is interpreted and fitted into Frank's thesis. See, for example, notes 2, 13, 21, 24 of this article.Google Scholar