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The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981), referring to the process by which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of all time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and the subsequent rise of the colonial empires, the Age of Enlightenment, the Commercial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution and finally the Industrial Revolution. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including lack of government intervention, geography, colonialism, and customary traditions. Before the Great Divergence, the core developed areas included Europe, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. Western Europe, China, and Japan had developed to a relatively high level and began to face constraints on energy and land use, while India still possessed large amounts of unused resources. Shifts in government policy from mercantilism to ''laissez-faire'' liberalism aided Western development. Technological advances, such as railroads, steamboats, mining, and agriculture were embraced to a higher degree in the West than the East during the Great Divergence. Technology led to increased industrialization and economic complexity in the areas of agriculture, trade, fuel and resources, further separating the East and the West. Europe's use of coal as an energy substitute for wood in the mid-19th century gave Europe a major head start in modern energy production. Although China had used coal earlier during the Song, its use declined due to the shift of Chinese industry to the south, far from major deposits, during the destruction of Mongol and Jurchen invasions between 1100 and 1400. The West also had the advantage of larger quantities of raw materials and a substantial trading market. China and Asia did participate in trading, but colonization brought a distinct advantage to the West. "In the twentieth century, the Great Divergence peaked before the First World War and continued until the early 1970s, then, after two decades of indeterminate fluctuations, in the late 1980s it was replaced by the Great Convergence as the majority of Third World countries reached economic growth rates significantly higher than those in most First World countries".〔(Phases of global demographic transition correlate with phases of the Great Divergence and Great Convergence. ''Technological Forecasting and Social Change''. Volume 95, June 2015, Page 163 ); see also (''Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective'' ).〕 ==Terminology and definition== The term "Great Divergence" was coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1996 and used by Kenneth Pomeranz in his book ''The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy'' (2000). The same phenomenon was discussed by Eric Jones, whose 1981 book ''The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia'' popularized the alternate term "European Miracle". Broadly, both terms signify a socioeconomic shift in which Western countries advanced ahead of Eastern countries during the Modern period. The timing of the Great Divergence is in dispute among historians. The traditional dating is as early as the 16th century, with scholars arguing that Europe had been on a trajectory of higher growth since that date. Pomeranz and others argue that the period of most rapid divergence was during the 19th century. Citing nutrition data and chronic Western trade deficits as evidence, these scholars claim that before that date the East, especially China, was wealthier and more advanced. Others, while accepting parity of incomes between the most prosperous parts of China and Europe around 1800, trace the first significant changes in European economies back to the 17th century. Others argue that the cultural factors behind the divergence can be traced to earlier periods and institutions such as the Renaissance and the Chinese imperial examination system.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Divergence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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