How long does it take to read The Great Divergence?
China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.
Kenneth Pomeranz
The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz takes about 7 hours 11 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 11 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2000. 392 pages, about 107,800 words.
15 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 59 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 11 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 30 minutes |
The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia?". "Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Economic conditions, Comparative economics, Economic development, History, Economische ontwikkeling, Economische politiek
