@article{763466,
      recid = {763466},
      author = {Francks, Penelope,},
      title = {Japan and the Great Divergence : a short guide /},
      pages = {1 online resource (viii, 123 pages).},
      abstract = {This text offers an accessible guide to the ways in which  our growing knowledge of development in early-modern and  modernising Japan can throw light on the paths that  industrialisation was eventually to take across the globe.  It has long been taken as read that the industrial  revolution was the product of some form of 'European  superiority' dating back to at least early-modern times. In  The Great Divergence, Kenneth Pomeranz challenged this  assumption on the basis of his evidence that parts of  eighteenth-century China were as well placed as northern  Europe to achieve sustained economic growth, thus igniting  what has been called 'the single most important debate in  recent global history'. Japan, as the only non-Western  country to experience significant industrialisation before  the Second World War, ought to provide crucial - and  intriguing - evidence in the debate, but analysis of the  Japanese case in such a context has remained limited. This  work suggests ways of re-interpreting Japanese economic  history in the light of the debate, so arguing that global  historians and scholars of Japan have in fact much to say  to each other within the comparative framework that the  Great Divergence provides. Penelope Francks is now Honorary  Fellow of the University of Leeds, UK, where she was  previously Reader in Japanese Studies and taught for many  years on the history and economy of Japan and the rest of  East Asia. Her research interests lie in Japanese economic  history, especially rural development and, more recently,  the history of consumption. She has published a range of  books and journal articles on these topics. },
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/763466},
}