Are there any fair "Eurocentric" explanations to the Great Divergence topic of comparative History?

by pog99

I qualified question with "Eurocentric" account because I came across a Historical sociologist named Ricardo Duchesne.

Having been familiar with Academics like Jack Goody in explaining Medieval African development, I take for granted that different cultures have unique experiences to explain different trajectories of development.

Thus, Ricardo Duchesne taking these into account, while arguing that a Eurocentic view of history can still be fair, I at first thought his basic thesis on the "Great Divergence" of Western Civilization being much earlier is plausible if not close to the truth. For instance his points on the relative geographic isolation of Chinese and Sub Saharan Africa, along with the role of Indo-European Nomadic stratification.

The problem though is when his subsequent work and associations is less about investigating the factors behind this and more about writing of attempts of Cultural Marxism eliminating Western Identity, closer looks at his comments in his papers, blogs discussions, and responses to criticism unrelated to his first book basically proves Turchin's criticism correct on his ideology affecting his work.

My question then, is, are there any other academics who take a similar approach in defining unique Western traits in explaining the scientific revolution or other developments in the West compared to other civilizations like China?

AlviseFalier

Just a point of order, how do you define "Eurocentric?"

There is no question that some Northwestern European economies industrialized before anyone else. The debate, if there is one, exists around comparing and measuring non (or pre-) industrial economic activity. The difficulty in this measurement is that pre-industrial economic activity is fundamentally a function of agricultural productivity, however the "successful" or "optimal" distribution of economic prosperity even in agriculturally prosperous societies is a gigantic black hole.

If you would like to read a universally-accepted summary of the drivers behind economic divergence, "Understanding the Process of Economic Change," by Douglass North is a good place to start. Douglass North is a Nobel-prize winning economic historian, and pretty much all of his books espouse generally accepted theories of economic development (although the farther back you go, the more dated the notions espoused will become).

If by "Eurocentric" you instead mean that you are exclusively interested in the origins of European Economic development, a book that might answer some of your questions is "The First Modern Economy" by Jan De Vries.