Growth Recurring

"My research interest is in comparative economic growth and development over the long term, from Christ to the present time. There have been two big puzzles in the research field that I have been involved in. The first issue is related to the British Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century in terms of why and how it ever occurred let alone overtook the world as a growth/development model. The second puzzle is related to Premodern China, a country which used to lead the world in so many areas – science, technology, output levels, living standards and governance, to name but a few. It never became industrialised until very recently. My five books tackle these two puzzles from different angles. Also, they are easy to read without off-putting quantitative contents that are associated with economics. Professor Eric L Jones is one of the leading scholars to tackle the aforementioned twin puzzles simultaneously. This book, first published in 1988, was a follow-up of his earlier book, The European Miracle . In this one, Professor Jones established two parallel worlds, one of Europe and the other of Asia. He argued that intensive growth of the modern type, i.e., growth with better technology and high per capita income, occurred in both worlds. The first recorded such growth was China under the Sung (Song) Period of the 10th to 13th centuries. Then there was a similar growth in Tokugawa Japan of the 17th to 19th centuries. These were the forerunners of the British Industrial Revolution. This work was revolutionary in providing a powerful antithesis to the normative stereotype of European exceptionalism in growth and development. The conclusion was that there is no ground for Eurocentricism in explaining the world history of economic growth prior to the 19th century. The best part of Jones’s book is his take on the universal growth type called ‘intensive growth’. It is a simple and elegant concept, easy to apply and measure. It is close to our common sense. One does not need any training in economics to understand it."