When and How the East-West Great Divergence Took Place:A Review from the Perspective of Technological Capability in Machine Tool Industry *

Peng Nansheng  and Yan Peng
Institute of Modern Chinese History, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China

 
Abstract: Kenneth Pomeranz and other members of the California School hold that China has lagged behind the West mainly because of the geographical distribution of its mineral resources. They emphasize that the Great Divergence between the East and the West began in very late 1800s. However, the emergence of steam engine, the symbol of the Industrial Revolution, is based on the technology accumulation and inheritance of machine tool industry in 16th century Western Europe. In contrast, China in the Ming Dynasty did not have similar machine tool technologies and even when such Western technologies were introduced to China in the late Ming Dynasty—along with clocks and firearms – they were not successfully grafted into Chinese technology tradition. Therefore,China lacked both the key technologies required for an Industrial Revolution and the capability to develop related technologies. The Great Divergence between the East and the West started in the 16th century and the West’s technological capability in the heavy industry is the very advantage that brought it ahead of China.
Key words: technology, the Great Divergence, heavy industry, the California School

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