ABSTRACT
This chapter integrates a business history perspective into debates about the Great Divergence between the West and the Rest, and the more recent Great Convergence. It argues that business historians should provide more micro- evidence about the causes of the Great Divergence, while reviewing the considerable research they have already undertaken on why the development of modern business enterprise in the Rest lagged. It points to the multiple challenges entrepreneurs faced in terms of capital-raising, trust levels, and the societal and cultural embeddedness of new technologies. By the interwar years, there is evidence of emergent modern entrepreneurship and business enterprise in Asia, Latin America and Africa, many governmental policies after 1945 crippled such emergent business enterprises. The second wave of globalization from the 1980s provided more opportunities for catch up from the Rest. Firms from emerging markets had the opportunity to access the global supply networks. There were also new ways for firms in the Rest to access knowledge and capital, and governments in a number of countries proved effective supporters of corporate catch-ups. Business historians have an enormous opportunity to contribute to understanding these processes.
