A significant but uneven spurt of industrialization started in China during the first three decades of the 20th century at a time of political instability and national disintegration. This article argues that economic growth during this period was closely associated with the rise and expansion...

Europe in the sixteenth and most of the seventeenth century was engulfed in a wave of Sinophilia. However, by the eighteenth century a dramatic shift in the popular view of China in Europe occurred and Sinophobic writings began to dominate. The primary scholarly argument about the causes behind...

This study finds that the development process of the Kiryu silk weaving district in Japan from 1895 to 1930 can be divided at least into the two phases, i.e., Smithian growth based on the inter-firm division of labor using hand looms and Schumpeterian development based on factory system using...

This present paper focuses on the diffusion of wu-wei (an ancient Chinese concept of political economy) throughout Europe, between 1648 and 1848. It argues that at the core of this diffusion process were three major developments; firstly the importation and active transmission of wu-wei by the...

This paper identifies the absence of both sub-continentally oriented histories which knit together the land and sea trades, and convincing explanations of the persistence of the Indo-Central Asian trade (for example) despite the growing Indo-European trade from the seventeenth-century. The...

This paper contributes to the debate on globalization and the great divergence with a comprehensive analysis of trends, causes and effects of the integration of Asia in the world market from 1800 to the eve of World War Two, based on a newly compiled data-set. The analysis finds that: most price...

This was edited by Colin M Lewis.