Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- INTRODUCTION -- The importance, role and function of the state: The cases of Great Britain and China -- HISTORIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION: TRADITIONAL VIEWS AND ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES -- The persistence of the traditional view: Britain as an...

"In this book Peer Vries is the first scholar to provide an extensive test of the claim that industrialization in East Asia, in particular in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and World War Two, would have been much more labour intensive than industrialization in the West. He does this by...