It isn’t just that China doesn’t have an Industrial Revolution, it doesn’t have a Galileo or a Newton or a Descartes, people who announced that everything people did before them was wrong. That’s hard to do in any society, but it was easier to do in Europe than China. The reason precisely is because Europe was fragmented, and so when somebody says something very novel and radical, if the government decides they are a heretic and threatens to prosecute them, they pack their suitcase and go across the border.
Without an exit option, voice does not get you very far.
Honestly, I did not notice the small type in Mokyr’s new book until commenters pointed it out to me. Maybe at my age, every type face looks small.
What I did notice is the tsunami of citations. There are something like 40 pages of references, with something like 20 works listed on each of those pages. It is quite overwhelming. That, along with the fact that Mokyr usually refrains from making definitive judgments* makes the book somewhat ponderous. But I will withhold overall judgment until I am finished.
*As my father used to say, the First Iron Law of Social Science holds (“Sometimes it’s this way and sometimes it’s that way”)
It’s not just fragmentation, nor even mostly — the various India tribes were never successful imperialists nor were they unified, yet their technology also never took off. Similarly, or even more so, the Islamic Arabs — who chose to stop scientific progress which might threaten the “Words of the Prophet”.
I’m becoming quite annoyed at focus on Europe (+N. America) vs China, while ignoring India and Islamic Mid-East. (Ignoring local tribal fighting in Africa and throughout Native American tribal lands seems fine, not annoying, more justified)
A key issue is that progress can be stopped, and there can even be regression without war defeat.
Mokyr doesn’t mention China’s Madagascar visit around 1418
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Zheng He’s maritime travels took place from 1405 to 1433 and it is documented that in 1418 he led a vast fleet of no less than 62 ships ferrying 37,000 soldiers …
Sadly, most of the official records about Zheng He’s voyages were destroyed (the result of jealousy on the part of the Emperor’s court officials towards the eunuch clique that Zheng He belonged to).
http://newafricanmagazine.com/chinas-long-history-africa/#sthash.k28fDoqR.dpuf
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Finally, most religion has mostly been an anti-progress force, allying itself with local current rulers to push for stability and order. The Christian focus on the individual being important to God, and being saved, is in many ways the beginning of (individual) Human Rights.
Protestant vs Catholic fighting and competition was somehow far more conducive to peaceful acceptance of "the other" after the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, and the acceptance of individual choice in local religious belief was pretty important. Plus the Exit (to America) if one's conscience pushes you.
The Gutenberg Press (& Bible) seem a key precursor to the Industrial Revolution as well. Why were no other civilizations teaching their workers to read, nor have much worth reading other than the local religious text?
Few deny any of these many real influences, but it's interesting to list them and weight them. Possibly listing only those with a weight greater than 1%. Not to forget guns — God created Man, Colt made him equal.
(more steel, less germs…)