Do historians in China, Japan and Russia largely agree with their Western colleagues in interpreting the industrial revolution and it's major impact on human development?

/u/peppigue

I will address this in the context of The Great Divergence, starting with the western interpretation of the Industrial Revolution and how these viewpoints can be used to analyze the divergence between the "West" and the "East".

The "Western interpretation" of the industrial revolution that I know of revolves around three key figures: Adam Smith, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. Not all them are historians, but they all construct frameworks through which they examined the industrial revolution in Europe and used their models to extrapolate its impact on humanity and its potential for the future.

Smith focused on productivity and labor, and argued that specialization of labor (or division of labor) optimizes productivity, with trade as naturally connecting various specialized outputs. He rejected the mercantilist view that the accumulation of money as the ultimate objective. Marx saw the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism as a necessary development stage, but that the resulting greed and societal pressures would lead to socialism, the movement beyond capitalism to socialism being inevitable. Weber focused on cultural primacy, that Protestant ethic uniquely enabled Northern Europe to thrive ahead of Southern Europe, and by extension, the rest of the world.

All three views argued against each other.

When the same approaches are used in analyzing East Asia (I'm excluding Russia because I am not an expert, and I can only postulate Russia follows the Marxist view), the focus of the analysis is usually on the so-called Great Divergence, which is the comparative study of Europe versus Asia as the former overcame early modern growth constraints and thus pulled well ahead of the latter.

The Smithist view is simple: that Asian countries faced hurdles in their evolution toward the Smithian utopia, namely the various wars, trade restrictions imposed by colonial powers, Opium Wars, etc. The Marxist view is similar and to some degree an extension, in that Europe was able to draw wealth from the colonies, thus accelerate Europe's headlong entry into the industrial revolution and capitalism (and thus arguing it naturally will enter Marxism). Whereas Asian countries themselves are left behind because they were stuck in a pre-capitalist state. The Weberist view is that Asian cultures and societies had impediments in organizing themselves efficiently.

And now, on to the Asian Revisionist school.

The general arguments tend to focus on either disagreements on the level of divergence that actually developed over time, in particular in the critical period of the 1500-1800. There are many aspects to this, of course. One is the military aspect, where arguments tend to be around levels of technology (Europeans had major advantages in guns! and in sailing technology! and in astronomy! and in pre-scientific thinking!) or levels of industrialization (Europeans could build more guns better and cheaper! Europeans could organize trade better!). The Revisionist school argues that China too went through its industrial revolution, evident in that China produced many goods of high value that were desirable in Europe.

Other arguments tend to focus on Marxist and Weberist views. The argument against the Marxist view is that while the ultimate goal of an utopian Marxist society, the path toward that tend to be seen as a strictly theoretical construct, as the impact of capitalism on Asian countries is very different than its impact on European countries. Some insist they are the same, some argue they are very different. Weberists have done comparative studies of Asian countries in the 19th-20th centuries, in particular in analyzing the rise of Japan as a major power. They tend to praise Japan's successful centralization of power, and military consolidation, in similar fashion to a Smithist view.

The are many studies into Asian cultures and religions done through a Weberists perspective. The Eurocentric Weberist perspective is fairly straightforward: they highlight protestant work ethic and tried to measure the degree and potential of Asian societies approaching the same ethics. The non-Eurocentric perspective examines the political realities of Asian societies and countries to identify enabling factors and hurdle factors toward an efficient ordered society.

So in summary, there are two lines of disagreement among the so-called Revisionists. One is on the reality of the Great Divergence during the period of the industrial revolution. Another is on how Europe and Asia evolved and impacted each other in this period.

Want to know more? See Pomeranz' The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, 2000.