Great Divergence

"Great Divergence" is a term coined by Samuel Huntington (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981) referring to the process by which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of all time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, Joseon Korea and the Ottoman Empire.

The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and the subsequent rise of the colonial empires, the Age of Enlightenment, the Commercial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution and finally the Industrial Revolution. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including geography, colonialism, resources, and customary traditions.

Before the Great Divergence, the core developed areas included Western Europe, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. Western Europe, China, Korea and Japan had developed to a relatively high level and began to face constraints on energy and land use, while India still possessed large amounts of unused resources.

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