The most significant debate in global economic history over the past twenty years has dealt with the Great Divergence, the economic gap between different parts of the world. Thus far, this debate has focused on China, India and north-western Europe, particularly Great Britain. This book shifts the focus to ask how Japan became the only non-western county that managed, at least partially, to modernize its economy and start to industrialize in the 19th century.
Using a range of empirical data, Peer Vries analyses the role of the state in Japan’s economic growth from the Meiji Restoration to World War II, and asks whether Japan’s economic success can be attributed to the rise of state power. Asserting that the state’s involvement was fundamental in Japan’s economic ‘catching up’, he demonstrates how this was built on legacies from the previous Tokugawa period. In this book, Vries deepens our understanding of the Great Divergence in global history by re-examining how Japan developed and modernized against the odds.
By:
Peer Vries (Institute of Social History the Netherlands)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 449g
ISBN: 9781350196179
ISBN 10: 1350196177
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 25 March 2021
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1. Continuities and Changes 2. A Sovereign and Modern State 3. A Powerful State: Politics, Ideology, the Military and the Bureaucracy 4. A Powerful State: The Economy 5. A Capitalist State, Friendly to Employers But Much Less So to Workers 6. A Developmental State 7. A State Promoting Knowledge Transfer and Education 8. Some Comments on What (Supposedly?) Went Wrong 9. A brief Summary Appendices Notes Bibliography Index
Peer Vries is Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History, Netherlands, and has previously held positions as Professor of Global Economic History at University of Vienna, Austria, and Leiden University, Netherlands. His publications include State, Economy and the Great Divergence: Britain and China (2015) and Escaping Poverty: The Origins of Modern Economic Growth (2013).
Reviews for Averting a Great Divergence: State and Economy in Japan, 1868-1937
[An] excellent overview of Japanese economic development from the Tokugawa (1600-1867) period until 1937 ... As major survey of the Japanese experience by a leading scholar of the Great Divergence, Averting a Great Divergence belongs on the shelves of all economic historians interested in comparative economic development. * EH.Net * This is a heroic undertaking by Professor Peer Vries to deepen our understanding of the Great Divergence in global history by re-examining the historic controversy of Japan's alleged volunteer changes towards modernity which we still know so little about. * Kent Deng, Professor of Economic History, London School of Economics, UK * A comprehensive, learned, and incisive account of the role that the Japanese state played in the development of the Japanese economy between the Meiji Restoration and World War 2. Recommended for all scholars of comparative economic and political development. * Mark Koyama, Associate Professor, George Mason University, USA *
