Great Divergence

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The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which Western Europe along with former settler colonies in Northern America and Australasia overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization, eclipsing other previously dominant or comparable Eurasian civilizations such as Qing China, Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, and Tokugawa Japan, among others. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including mineral deposits, geography, culture, institutions, and luck. There is also disagreement about its timing. While some scholars cite the Commercial Revolution or emphasize slow, long-term structural social changes rooted in the medieval period, others point to the early modern era (15th or 16th century) as the definitive beginning, citing the origins of mercantilism and capitalism during the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, the rise of the European...

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