Technology and Technical Knowledge in the Great Divergence

In whichever field one seeks the clues for the question "Why Europe?", the reasons must be sought primarily in the early modern period. It is not the aim of this essay to present and discuss all the issues investigated by those involved in discussing this question in different subfield of history focusing on demography or economic institutions, religious beliefs or the availability of natural resources, factors such as the exploitation of colonies in the Americas and others.

Economic historians, in particular, who are the most active participants in the debate, have identified a number of core issues, such as wage rates, agricultural productivity, or anthropometric measures for comparing standards of living in regions of Europe, China, and India. Their considerations, based on extensive analysis of the relevant source material, will not be summarized here either, as recent detailed studies have presented the respective data⁶. Within the thematic framework of the present volume, the aim of this essay is rather to take a closer look at how "technology" enters and figures in this debate.

When authors discuss the whole bundle of possible factors that might have set England, in particular, on its way to industrialization, none can avoid mentioning technology. In the long run, machines too clearly appear as indispensable factors for industrialization to be ignored. For the production of textiles, iron and steel, and many other goods; the steam engine as a power generator and the motor in locomotives that accelerated transportation; and the shift to an energy system based on fossil fuels, later supplemented by electricity as a new form of easily available energy.

It would be a gross mistake, however, to identify the factor "technology" as a special characteristic of Europe or the West in the time period considered here. It is one of the central lessons of recent research on a global scale to have provided much detailed information about technologies used in various world regions in pre-industrial times. The debate on the "great divergence" and respective cross-cultural comparisons usually focus predominantly on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Somewhat implicitly, most authors thus agree that, towards the end of the European Middle Ages, Eurasian cultures were disposing over roughly comparable technological equipment and technical competences.

At that point of time, it is argued, it would thus not have been possible to foresee which of them was better prepared for industrialization: Chinese regions had thriving economies and coal, ores and other resources in abundance. Zheng He had, just some decades earlier, successfully completed his famous exploratory voyages which even led him to the eastern shores of Africa. Asian coastlines were dotted with smaller and larger harbours, which served to exchange a multitude of goods, among them precious wares like silk garments or Chinese porcelain, over large distances to the Arab peninsula – in Europe, too, these luxuries were long being appreciated⁷.

Textiles were produced all over Asia in great variety and number, and by refined techniques. In Arab regions, refined artisanship and complex hydraulic systems formed the basis of intense commercial networks across Eurasia as well as far into Africa. It fits into this picture that, up to around 1500, Europe had been an importer of a wide array of technologies and goods from Asian regions as far as China: examples range from the compass to gunpowder and complex automata, silk and paper. In early modern Europe, authors were well aware of these origins and often mentioned them in their writings⁸.