European miracle

The term European miracle was coined by Eric Jones in his 1981 "The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia" to refer to the sudden rise of Europe from comparatively backward origins during the Middle Ages to the domination of world trade and world politics by Early Modern period, by means of the Age of discovery (and by consequence the formation of the European colonial empires), Industrialisation and the development of capitalism, instead of Europe's originally more promising competitors, the Islamic empires (Ottoman empire, Mamluk Sultanate, Safavid Persia, Mughal India) and to some extent even Ming China.

It is closely related to the idea of the Great divergence, which rather than on the origins of the rise of Europe during the Renaissance focusses on the culmination of the process in the 18th century and the subsequent "imperial century" of Britain.

Eric Jones

Jones aims at providing an answer to the question of "Why did modern states and economies develop first in the peripheral and late-coming culture of Europe?" Jones attempts to argue a concatenation of various factors, in particular the interplay of natural and economic factors which have worked to Europe's advantage and to the disadvantage of its Asian competitors.

During the Middle Ages, European culture was clearly less advanced than either that of the Islamic world or that of the Chinese empire.More than half of the world's population living in urban settlements (over 10,000 people) lived in China during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.The voyages of Zheng He support the claim that Chinese Junks were more advanced than European ships of the time. Cities like ancient Malacca had sea trade routes which stretched as far as North Africa. In his book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, author John M. Hobson asserts that Europe actually imitated the pioneering inventions made by The Middle East, Egypt, India, and China.

Jones' theories can be seenWho|date=August 2008 as building on the work of earlier thinkers such as Max Weber, Immanuel Wallerstein, Georg Hegel, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx. Weber's idea of the "Protestant work ethic" and Hegel's Spirit were certainly influential.Fact|date=August 2008Wallerstein's idea of a world-economy and world-system originating in Europe also comes through in European miracle theory. The idea of a unique European family structure is also a central tenet of the European miracle theory.Fact|date=December 2007 Purportedly, the European family was nuclear, women married late, and had few children. Europe understood how to control their population while the rest of the world, to quote Jones, "multiplied insensately." This meant that Europe was not vulnerable to Malthusian Crises and therefore able to form a progressive, capitalist society.
Urbanization is also adduced as a factor. Crucially, these cities were also "semi-autonomous", especially the Italian city-states. The growth of banking, accounting and general financial infrastructure in such cities is seen as unique and vital to the rise of Europe.

Reception

Jones' 1981 study is one of the most influential books dedicated to the question of European exceptionalism.Some historians, in particular of the "California school" have felt that Jones has over-stated the thedegree of difference between Europe and non-European regions on the eve ofthe Industrial Revolution.

The attention attracted by the book has also resulted in making it:"into the whipping boy of those who have resented what they viewed as historiographical triumphalism, eurocentricity, and evenracism." (Joel Mokyr, The Enduring Riddle of the European Miracle 2002 [http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jmokyr/Riverside.PDF] )It has been attacked by thinkers such as James Blaut, Andre Gunder Frank, Kenneth Pomeranz, and John M. Hobson. They accuse Jones of Eurocentrism and "cultural racism" (Blaut's termpage number).

Editions

*cite book | first=Eric | last=Jones | year=1981 | title=The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= Cambridge University Press| id=ISBN 0-521-52783-X | url= | authorlink=
*cite book | first=Eric | last=Jones | year=1987 | title=The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= Cambridge University Press| id=ISBN 9780521336703 | url= | authorlink=
*cite book | first=Eric | last=Jones | year=2003 | title=The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= Cambridge University Press| id=ISBN 9780521527835 | url= | authorlink=

References

*cite book | first=James | last=Blaut | year=2000| title=Eight Eurocentric Historians | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 1-57230-591-6| url= | authorlink=

*cite book | first=James | last=Blaut | year=1993| title=The Colonizer's Model of the World | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 0-89862-348-0| url= | authorlink=

*cite book | first=Paul| last=Farmer| year=2003| title=Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 0-520-23550-9| url= | authorlink=

*cite book | first=Andre | last=Frank| year=1998| title=Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 0-520-21474-9| url= | authorlink=

*cite book | first=John| last=Hobson| year=2004| title=The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher=Cambridge University Press | id=ISBN-13: 9780521547246 | url=http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521547245 | authorlink=

*cite book | first=Kenneth| last=Pomeranz| year=2001| title=Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 0-691-09010-6| url= | authorlink=

*cite book | first=Paul| last=Kennedy| year=1988| title=The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= | publisher= | id=ISBN 0-679-72019-7 | url= | authorlink=

ee also

* Western empires
* Early Modern Europe
* Age of Exploration
* Spanish Golden Age
* Europeanism
* Eurocentrism