A History of the Global Economy: 1500 to the Present

Citation

Baten, J. (Ed.). (2016). A History of the Global Economy: 1500 to the Present. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is an edited volume: an introduction, ten regional chapters, a short conclusion and an index. Each regional chapter is written by a specialist on that part of the world. Between and within them sit "interlinking chapters", which follow a single theme across regions, and shorter "highlight articles" on particular episodes, firms or individuals. By the page ranges of the chapter records, the regional chapters run from about 20 pages (Japan, China) to about 40 or more (Southern, Eastern and Central Europe; Latin America; the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa). The editor's introduction states the guiding questions: why some parts of the world are rich and others poor, when they diverged, and what the causes were.

Introduction: A History of the Global Economy: the "Why" and the "How"

Joerg Baten sets out the questions of the book and the method: a common set of development indicators applied to every region, with trade, migration, institutions and flows of physical and human capital as the recurring explanations of growth.

Chapter 1: North-Western Europe

Jan Luiten van Zanden's regional overview opens the volume. It is followed by an interlinking chapter by Stephen Broadberry on "The great divergence in the world economy: long-run trends of real income", and a highlight article by Catherine Schenk on international financial regulation and supervision.

Chapter 2: Southern, Eastern and Central Europe

Baten's own chapter on the rest of Europe. It is paired with his interlinking chapter "The Sputnik shock, the Pisa shock: human capital as a global growth determinant", and with highlight articles by Pablo Martín Aceña on state finances during civil wars and Irina Potkina on property rights in the Russian Empire.

Chapter 3: The United States and Canada

Price Fishback covers North America. Kevin O'Rourke's interlinking chapter compares the Great Depression of the 1930s with the world economic crisis after 2008; three highlight articles, by Franco Amatori and Knut Sogner, deal with multi-divisional firms and managerial capitalism, business history and innovation, and Alfred D. Chandler Jr.

Chapter 4: Latin America

Luis Bértola and José Antonio Ocampo write the Latin American chapter. Baten's interlinking chapter asks whether there was a "curse of natural resources". Highlight articles cover early contact, epidemics and numeracy in 1500-1800 (Baten) and the economic consequences of independence (Salomón Kalmanovitz).

Chapter 5: Japan's Long-Run Growth Process in a Eurasian Perspective

Osamu Saito places Japan within a Eurasian comparison. A highlight article by Tetsuji Okazaki treats Japanese industry during the Second World War.

Chapter 6: China

The China chapter is accompanied by a highlight article by Debin Ma on international expositions and East Asia's participation in the modern era, and by the interlinking chapter "Trade and poverty 1820-1913: when the Third World fell behind", which the contents list as bridging Chapters 5 and 6.

Chapter 7: Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia

Rima Ghanem and Joerg Baten survey the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. The chapter comes with an interlinking chapter on women in global economic history and a highlight article on the imperial expansion of the Ottoman Empire and its cultural determinants.

Chapter 8: The Economic History of South Asia: A Survey of Quantitative Research

A survey of quantitative research on South Asia, paired with an interlinking chapter on human stature as a health indicator in colonial empires and a highlight article on whether brain drain from India caused underdevelopment, using the numeracy of Indian migrants as evidence.

Chapter 9: Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand

Martin Shanahan's chapter combines Southeast Asia with Australia and New Zealand. It carries a highlight article on the prehistoric, ancient and classical periods of Southeast Asia, and an interlinking chapter on institutional development in world economic history.

Chapter 10: Sub-Saharan Africa

Gareth Austin's chapter closes the regional tour, with a highlight article asking why Ethiopia was not colonised during the late-nineteenth-century "Scramble for Africa".

Conclusion

A three-page closing chapter by the editor.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Chapters 1-4: Europe and the Americas

• Great divergence: the long-run separation in real income between richer and poorer parts of the world, traced in Broadberry's interlinking chapter.
• Human capital: education and skills as a driver of growth, discussed through the "Sputnik shock" and "Pisa shock" comparison.
• Natural-resource curse: the question of whether resource wealth held back Latin American economies.
• Numeracy: the ability to handle numbers, used by Baten as a historical measure of human capital where schooling records are missing.

Chapters 5-10: Asia, the Middle East and Africa

• Trade and poverty: the interlinking chapter on 1820-1913 asks how trade relates to the falling behind of what is now called the Third World.
• Human stature: average height as an indicator of health and living standards in colonial empires.
• Institutions: the interlinking chapter in Chapter 9 compares institutional development across world economic history.
• Women in economic history: a theme given its own interlinking chapter.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Regional specialists and a common frame. Every regional chapter is by an expert on that region, and the chapters use the same development indicators. Nuno Palma, reviewing the book in TSEG (2017), found a "remarkable degree of coherence" for an edited book with a long list of authors.
• Breadth beyond Europe. J. L. Rosenbloom, in Choice, singled out the coverage of developing countries as especially valuable and judged each chapter a reasonable overview of research on its region. Palma notes that the book reflects the less Eurocentric turn of recent economic history and gives early-modern periods fuller attention.
• Alternative measures of development. Besides per capita GDP, the book uses anthropometric (height) data, numeracy and other human-capital measures. Palma points to this and to the many informative maps as distinctive features.
• Themes that cut across regions. The interlinking chapters let a reader follow one question, such as natural resources or women's economic roles, beyond a single regional chapter.

Limitations

• Dense for beginners. Palma found it remarkable how much information is packed into a small book, but thought the presentation could be too concise for many undergraduates without prior knowledge of the topics or support from teachers.
• Selective, not a continuous narrative. Palma observes that the emphasis on indicators and regional specialisation comes at the expense of a more traditional narrative, particularly for Western countries, which are inevitably better covered.
• Uneven scale. Chapter lengths vary widely: the Japan and China chapters are each about 20 pages, against 40 or more for several other regions, so coverage per country is uneven.
• A survey, not a single argument. The publisher describes the chapters as summaries of key findings, debates and ideas from many authors, so readers who want one sustained thesis about the origins of growth will find it only in the shared questions, not in a unified argument.

Where It Fits in the Course

Of the books listed with it for economic history, this is the regional-survey text. Larry Neal and Rondo Cameron's A Concise Economic History of the World is a single-author narrative that runs from the earliest agricultural societies to the present; Baten's volume starts in 1500 and replaces one voice with regional specialists. Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin's How the World Became Rich and Acemoglu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail are argument-driven accounts of why growth began and why it is uneven, and can be read before this book for a framing question or after it for a causal debate. Douglass North's Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance and Acemoglu and Robinson's Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy are more theoretical and are better approached once the empirical background in Baten's chapters is familiar.

How to Use This Book

The volume is aimed at undergraduates and general readers; Palma also considers it useful to researchers as a guide to recent literature. No special preparation is needed, but basic ideas such as GDP, productivity and trade make the data-heavy chapters easier.

A practical plan: read the introduction first, since it states the questions and indicators every later chapter uses. Then read the chapters for the regions a course or project needs, along with the interlinking chapter attached to each. Broadberry's chapter on real income (after Chapter 1) and Baten's on human capital (after Chapter 2) give the comparative backbone and are worth reading even if the surrounding regions are skipped. Read the highlight articles as short case studies; they can be left out on a first pass. Finish with the conclusion. For a course built around one question, such as the role of institutions, combine the interlinking chapter on institutional development with two or three regional chapters and compare how each author treats the same indicators.