1500 and 1800 look similar to the stagnating southern, central and eastern parts of Europe rather than the developing … northwestern parts. In the advanced parts of India and China, grain wages were comparable to those in northwestern Europe, but … wages of northwestern Europe were not simply a monetary phenomenon, but reflected high productivity in the tradable sector …

Western Europe had already diverged from the East and reached high numeracy levels by 1600, long before the rise of mass …