Endogenous and Exogenous: Debating the Historiography of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence

• Stefano Agnoletto ^[1]
  1. [1] BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway,
• Localización: Essays in economic and business history: the journal of the economic and business historical society, ISSN 0896-226X, Vol. 41, 1 1, 2023, págs. 1-30
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • The interpretation of the reasons for the successes and delays in the race for industrialization is still a fundamental issue in the historiographical debate. In particular, the discussion about the “economic success”of the space commonly called the West (that practically means North America, Europe, Japan and Australia/New Zealand) is certainly lively, and its enormous theoretical impact is evident. This articlefocuses on three different issues: the role played by exogenous factors and endogenous factorsin the historiography on different case studies and paths of industrialization; Eurocentrism/ethnocentrism in the approaches to the history of industrialization; and the debate on the roots of the supposed “victory”of the Western (or Euro-American) model. Although the debate is still open, this article shows that in recent decades a new approach on the history of industrialization has emerged and is gaining some hegemony: the need to consider not only endogenous readings of individual cases, but also to insert them into global contexts of relationships