Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000-2000

How the social organization of Europe and China shaped their divergent economic and political trajectories over the past millennium

In the eleventh century, when Europe was still backward and poor, China was a rich and sophisticated civilization. Yet Europe became the birthplace of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, driving the Great Enrichment, while China stagnated until the end of the twentieth century and was always ruled by autocracies. Two Paths to Prosperity traces the emergence...