Averting a Great Divergence: State and Economy in Japan, 1868-1937

(Paperback)

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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 Japans economic growth from the Meiji Restoration to World War II, and asks whether Japans economic success can be attributed to the rise of state power. Asserting that the states involvement was fundamental in Japans 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.

Reviews

[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 *
[The book] is valuable both for its systematic comparisons and for its polemical stance, which helps clarify key issues. Vriess book is a good and welcome illustration of why nonJapan specialists should be studying Japan. * Monumenta Nipponica *
As an introduction to literature, [it offers] a rich comparative history of Japan, [and will be] popular with Japanese [scholars] of the contemporary world. * Nihon Kenkyu (Bloomsbury Translation) *
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 Japans 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 *

Author Bio

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).