{"title":"Past growths: pre-modern and modern","authors":"P. Malanima","doi":"10.1017/S1740022820000418","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The article by Jack Goldstone, Dating the Great Divergence, has the merit of discussing both the wide panorama of recent global history and the conclusions stemming from specific northEuropean long-term series of GDP.1 The article’s main target is the deeply rooted idea that Modern Growth was the continuation of previous trends of GDP growth. Goldstone’s opinion is that the rise of the West, in the frame of global history, occurred only from the late-eighteenth century or the beginning of the Nineteenth, not earlier. At the time, a true divergence among World economies did not exist. Modern Growth is different from previous periods of expansion not merely in the degree but also in the nature. Pre-modern examples of growth were episodic and not sustained; they represented temporary ‘efflorescences’ rather than long upward rises.2 It is apparent that, in such an approach to growth, problems of definition are crucial. Since the modern rise is deemed to be different from past ‘efflorescences’ of sporadic growth, what is, according to Goldstone, the primary feature of “modern” in comparison with ‘pre-modern’? The definition of Modern Growth adopted by Goldstone is the classical one put forward in economics and historical research primarily by Simon Kuznets:3 it is characterised both by strong increases in population and production; growth in production is, however, higher than in population. The result is then a rise in per capita product or intensive4 growth. This rise is sustained for long periods of time and primarily derives from modern technological growth. This definition of Modern Growth, rapidly recalled by Goldstone in his present article, had been more widely discussed in his previous article on efflorescences and economic growth in World history.5 In the following, I will deal with the differences between modern and pre-modern growth and later with the concept of technological progress in relation to the rise of the West. I will focus primarily on Europe and the Mediterranean and will include extra-European macroareas at the end.","PeriodicalId":46192,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1740022820000418","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Global History","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022820000418","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
The article by Jack Goldstone, Dating the Great Divergence, has the merit of discussing both the wide panorama of recent global history and the conclusions stemming from specific northEuropean long-term series of GDP.1 The article’s main target is the deeply rooted idea that Modern Growth was the continuation of previous trends of GDP growth. Goldstone’s opinion is that the rise of the West, in the frame of global history, occurred only from the late-eighteenth century or the beginning of the Nineteenth, not earlier. At the time, a true divergence among World economies did not exist. Modern Growth is different from previous periods of expansion not merely in the degree but also in the nature. Pre-modern examples of growth were episodic and not sustained; they represented temporary ‘efflorescences’ rather than long upward rises.2 It is apparent that, in such an approach to growth, problems of definition are crucial. Since the modern rise is deemed to be different from past ‘efflorescences’ of sporadic growth, what is, according to Goldstone, the primary feature of “modern” in comparison with ‘pre-modern’? The definition of Modern Growth adopted by Goldstone is the classical one put forward in economics and historical research primarily by Simon Kuznets:3 it is characterised both by strong increases in population and production; growth in production is, however, higher than in population. The result is then a rise in per capita product or intensive4 growth. This rise is sustained for long periods of time and primarily derives from modern technological growth. This definition of Modern Growth, rapidly recalled by Goldstone in his present article, had been more widely discussed in his previous article on efflorescences and economic growth in World history.5 In the following, I will deal with the differences between modern and pre-modern growth and later with the concept of technological progress in relation to the rise of the West. I will focus primarily on Europe and the Mediterranean and will include extra-European macroareas at the end.
杰克·戈德斯通(Jack Goldstone)的《追溯大分歧》(Dating The Great Divergence)一文的优点在于,既讨论了近代全球历史的全景,也讨论了源自特定北欧长期GDP序列的结论。1这篇文章的主要目标是根深蒂固的观点,即现代增长是GDP增长先前趋势的延续。戈德斯通的观点是,在全球历史的框架内,西方的崛起只发生在18世纪末或19世纪初,而不是更早。当时,世界经济体之间并不存在真正的分歧。现代增长与以往的扩张时期不同,不仅在程度上,而且在性质上。前现代增长的例子是偶发的,而不是持续的;它们代表了暂时的“风化”,而不是长期的上升。2很明显,在这种增长方式中,定义问题至关重要。由于现代的崛起被认为与过去零星增长的“风化”不同,戈德斯通认为,与“前现代”相比,“现代”的主要特征是什么?戈德斯通对现代增长的定义是西蒙·库兹涅茨在经济学和历史研究中提出的经典定义:3现代增长的特点是人口和生产的强劲增长;然而,生产的增长高于人口的增长。其结果是人均生产总值的增长或密集增长。这种增长持续了很长一段时间,主要源于现代技术的增长。戈德斯通在他的这篇文章中迅速回忆起了对现代增长的定义,在他上一篇关于世界历史上的繁荣与经济增长的文章中,他对这一定义进行了更广泛的讨论。5在下文中,我将讨论现代增长与前现代增长之间的差异,以及后来与西方崛起相关的技术进步概念。我将主要关注欧洲和地中海,最后将包括欧洲以外的宏观地区。
期刊介绍:
Journal of Global History addresses the main problems of global change over time, together with the diverse histories of globalization. It also examines counter-currents to globalization, including those that have structured other spatial units. The journal seeks to transcend the dichotomy between "the West and the rest", straddle traditional regional boundaries, relate material to cultural and political history, and overcome thematic fragmentation in historiography. The journal also acts as a forum for interdisciplinary conversations across a wide variety of social and natural sciences. Published for London School of Economics and Political Science