Expert board:

• Scientific Council of RAS on economic history;
• Research and Educational Center «The economic history of Central Russia and the Middle Volga region» of Ogarev Mordovia State University;
• Center of Economic History of  Lomonosov Moscow State University

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Maksim A. Akimov

School of Public Policy, Moscow, Russia, е-mail: akimov-ma@ranepa.ru

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY: A REVISIONIST APPROACH TO THE GREAT DIVERGENCE

The paper is concerned with historiographical analysis of California School of economic history. The concept of «Great divergence» was coined by K. Pomeranz to indicate the process of transformation of Western Europe in the richest economy in the world, substantially different from the economic changes occurring on a global scale. Discussions about the causes and periodization of the specified differences (or divergence) are not new, but the revisionist approach to the «Great divergence» proposed by the group of researchers allocated in so-called «academic school», called the «California School of Economic History», interesting in light of the fact that within this school were offered a single methodology and theoretical background to review of socio-economic processes of world history with the purpose of rejection of the inherent Eurocentrism of earlier universalist and mechanistic determinism. It focuses basically on the principal of Californians. Californians’ main argument is that Europe has had no unique path of development up to Industrial revolution. The rise of the West was relatively recent, sudden and rested on the development the others, apart from Western macro region. In order to prove the argument Californians rely upon demonstration plethora of similarities within agrarian economic history among most developed Eurasian macro regions dating differences with the age of Industrial revolution. In the final part of the paper on the basis of analyzed revisionist approaches, there are conclusions on Californians’ contribution to understanding of Great Divergence as well as some criticisms of theirs highlights.

Keywords: Great Divergence, California School, K. Pomeranz, R. Bing Wong, J. Goldstone, economic growth, European miracle, Yangzi Delta.

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