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Escaping Malthus: a comparative look at Japan and the ‘Great Divergence’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2014

Carmen Gruber
Carmen Gruber*
Affiliation:
Vienna University of Economics and Business, Institute for Economic and Social History, Welthandelsplatz 1, Building D4, 1020 Vienna, Austria E-mail: carmen.gruber@wu.ac.at
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Abstract

The causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution have led to a great deal of scholarship and debate within the field of economic history, from efforts to understand the internal dynamics of England and Europe to more recent revisionist literature that has sought to expand the debate by looking to Asia. This has enlivened and broadened the ‘Great Divergence’ debate through examining, by way of ecological factors, not only why China did not industrialize but also why England took a different path from that of China. This article expands the argument by looking at Japan, with a focus on coal mining as a foundation for escaping Malthusian constraints. As such, it will assess the extent of Malthusian pressure in pre-modern Japan and the importance of coal mining in alleviating these pressures relative to conditions in England and China.

Keywords

Chinacoal‘Great Divergence’industrializationJapanMalthusian pressure
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , November 2014 , pp. 403 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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