Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

===Causes in Europe===
{{Main|Great Divergence}}
[[File:Microcosm of London Plate 017 - The Coal Exchange (tone).jpg|thumb|Interior of the [[Coal Exchange (London)|London Coal Exchange]], {{Circa|1808}}. European 17th-century colonial expansion, international trade, and creation of financial markets produced a new legal and financial environment, one which supported and enabled 18th-century industrial growth.]]
One question of active interest to historians is why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world in the 18th century, particularly China, [[Indian subcontinent|India]], and the Middle East (which pioneered in shipbuilding, textile production, water mills, and much more in the period between 750 and 1100<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress|last=Mokyr|first=Joel|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-19-507477-2|location=New York|pages=40–44}}</ref>), or at other times like in [[Classical antiquity|Classical Antiquity]]<ref name="j-bradford-delong"/> or the [[Middle Ages]].<ref name="historyguide"/> A recent account argued that Europeans have been characterized for thousands of years by a freedom-loving culture originating from the aristocratic societies of early Indo-European invaders.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Uniqueness of Western Civilization|last=Duchesne|first=Ricardo|publisher=Brill|year=2011|isbn=978-90-04-23276-1|location=Leiden}}</ref> Many historians, however, have challenged this explanation as being not only Eurocentric, but also ignoring historical context. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution, "there existed something of a global economic parity between the most advanced regions in the world economy."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vries|first=Pier|date=2001|title=Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial?|journal=Journal of World History|volume=2|page=411}}</ref> These historians have suggested a number of other factors, including education, technological changes<ref name="google12"/> (see [[scientific revolution|Scientific Revolution]] in Europe), "modern" government, "modern" work attitudes, ecology, and culture.<ref name="The Industrial Revolution – Causes"/>

[[China]] was the world's most technologically advanced country for many centuries; however, China stagnated economically and technologically and was surpassed by Western Europe before the [[Age of Discovery]], by which time China banned imports and denied entry to foreigners. China was also a totalitarian society. It also taxed transported goods heavily.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Genius of China: 3000 years of science, discovery and invention|last=Temple|first= Robert|year= 1986|publisher = Simon and Schuster|location=New York }}Based on the works of Joseph Needham></ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Genius That Was China: East and West in the Making of the Modern World|url=https://archive.org/details/geniusthatwaschi0000mers|url-access=registration|last1=Merson|first1= John|year= 1990|publisher = The Overlook Press|location=Woodstock, NY |isbn= 978-0-87951-397-9}}A companion to the PBS Series "The Genius That Was China</ref> Modern estimates of per capita income in Western Europe in the late 18th century are of roughly 1,500 dollars in [[purchasing power parity]] (and Britain had a [[per capita income]] of nearly 2,000 dollars<ref name="iisg"/>) whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars. India was essentially feudal, politically fragmented and not as economically advanced as Western Europe.<ref>
{{cite book |title     = The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
 |last      = Landes
 |first     = David
 |year      = 1999
 |publisher = W.W. Norton & Company
 |isbn      = 978-0-393-31888-3
 |url       = https://archive.org/details/wealthpovertyofn00land_0
}}
</ref>

Historians such as [[David Landes]] and sociologists [[Max Weber]] and [[Rodney Stark]] credit the different belief systems in Asia and Europe with dictating where the revolution occurred.<ref>{{cite book|first= David S.|last= Landes|date=1969|title= The Unbound Prometheus|publisher= Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge|isbn= 978-0-521-09418-4|pages=20–32}}</ref><ref name="Stark_2005"/> The religion and beliefs of Europe were largely products of [[Judeo-Christian|Judaeo-Christianity]] and [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] thought. Conversely, Chinese society was founded on men like [[Confucius]], [[Mencius]], [[Han Fei]]zi ([[Legalism (Chinese philosophy)|Legalism]]), [[Laozi|Lao Tzu]] ([[Taoism]]), and [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] ([[Buddhism]]), resulting in very different worldviews.<ref>{{Harvnb|Merson|1990|pp=34–35}}</ref> Other factors include the considerable distance of China's coal deposits, though large, from its cities as well as the then unnavigable [[Yellow River]] that connects these deposits to the sea.<ref name="professor"/>

Economic historian [[Joel Mokyr]] argued that [[political fragmentation]], the presence of a large number of European states, made it possible for heterodox ideas to thrive, as entrepreneurs, innovators, ideologues and heretics could easily flee to a neighboring state in the event that the one state would try to suppress their ideas and activities. This is what set Europe apart from the technologically advanced, large unitary empires such as China and India{{Contradictory inline|reason=India (like China) being a "large unitary empire" (unlike Europe) contradicts immediately preceding para., where (unlike China) India is "split up into many competing kingdoms."|date=May 2020|section=Causes in Europe}} by providing "an insurance against economic and technological stagnation".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia|last=Jones|first=Eric|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1981|location=Cambridge|page=119}}</ref> China had both a printing press and movable type, and India had similar levels of scientific and technological achievement as Europe in 1700, yet the Industrial Revolution would occur in Europe, not China or India. In Europe, political fragmentation was coupled with an "integrated market for ideas" where Europe's intellectuals used the {{Lang|la|lingua franca}} of Latin, had a shared intellectual basis in Europe's classical heritage and the pan-European institution of the [[Republic of Letters]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10835.html|title=Mokyr, J.: A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. (eBook and Hardcover)|access-date=9 March 2017|isbn=978-0-691-18096-0|last1=Mokyr|first1=Joel|date=6 January 2018|publisher=Princeton University Press|archive-date=24 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170324152030/http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10835.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Political institutions<ref name="w248">{{cite journal | last1=North | first1=Douglass C. | last2=Weingast | first2=Barry R. | title=Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England | journal=The Journal of Economic History | volume=49 | issue=4 | date=1989 | issn=0022-0507 | doi=10.1017/S0022050700009451 | pages=803–832}}</ref> could contribute to the relation between [[Democracy and economic growth|democratization and economic growth]] during Great Divergence.<ref name="t824">{{cite journal | last1=Knutsen | first1=Carl Henrik | last2=Møller | first2=Jørgen | last3=Skaaning | first3=Svend-Erik | title=Going historical: Measuring democraticness before the age of mass democracy | journal=International Political Science Review | volume=37 | issue=5 | date=2016 | issn=0192-5121 | doi=10.1177/0192512115618532 | pages=679–689| hdl=10852/59625 | hdl-access=free }}</ref>

In addition, Europe's monarchs desperately needed revenue, pushing them into alliances with their merchant classes. Small groups of merchants were granted monopolies and tax-collecting responsibilities in exchange for payments to the state. Located in a region "at the hub of the largest and most varied network of exchange in history",<ref>{{Cite book|title=Maps of Time|url=https://archive.org/details/mapstimeintroduc00chri|url-access=limited|last=Christian|first=David|publisher=University of California Press|year=2004|location=Berkeley|pages=[https://archive.org/details/mapstimeintroduc00chri/page/n413 390]|isbn=978-0-520-23500-7}}</ref> Europe advanced as the leader of the Industrial Revolution. In the Americas, Europeans found a windfall of silver, timber, fish, and maize, leading historian Peter Stearns to conclude that "Europe's Industrial Revolution stemmed in great part from Europe's ability to draw disproportionately on world resources."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Industrial Revolution in World History|last=Stearns|first=Peter|publisher=Westview Press|year=1998|location=Boulder, Colorado|page=36}}</ref>

Modern capitalism originated in the [[Italian city-states]] around the end of the first millennium. The city-states were prosperous cities that were independent from feudal lords. They were largely republics whose governments were typically composed of merchants, manufacturers, members of guilds, bankers and financiers. The Italian city-states built a network of branch banks in leading western European cities and introduced [[Double-entry bookkeeping system|double entry bookkeeping]]. Italian commerce was supported by schools that taught numeracy in financial calculations through [[abacus]] schools.<ref name="Stark_2005">{{cite book|title= The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success|url= https://archive.org/details/victoryofreasonh00star|url-access= registration|last= Stark|first= Rodney |year= 2005 |publisher =Random House Trade Paperbacks|location= New York |isbn=978-0-8129-7233-7}}</ref>