ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to explain how and why East Asia’s share in world GDP increased between 1500 and 1820, decreased between 1820 and 1945, and then increased rapidly over the last half century.
Table 3.1 suggests that between 1500 and 1820 there was only a marginal increase in the world’s per capita GDP, while after 1820 there was both an accelerated increase in population and a dramatic rise in per capita GDP. The most plausible interpretation of the first shift is that the industrial revolution in Britain constituted a major watershed in global history, ushering in a deepening of the penetration of the modern world system, emanating from Western Europe and encompassing the rest of the globe from the nineteenth century.
