In the article Peer Vries, professor of International Economic History at the University of Vienna, aims to analyze the theme of the Great Divergence, or the financial gap between the most rich and developed and the poorer and more disadvantaged. To do this, he focuses his attention on the interpretations of the Californian school, a group of intellectuals working in the universities of the state of the same name, analyzing their arguments and criticizing their weaknesses. He chooses to take the example of Great Britain and China to achieve his goal. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned'? Get an original essayThe school, in fact, argues that from the 15th century until the advent of the Industrial Revolution, there were no differences between Western Europe and Eastern Asia, but that in fact there were some similarities. Their view on the study of economic history differs from typical Eurocentric ones, such as Weberian and Marxist, as they place China as the heart of the modern global economy since, according to them, it was the cradle of many innovations. They considered China to be the largest economy in the world, giving the example of what Vries calls “the silver pit thesis” and explaining that, with the large surplus of silver imports, it could underline China's economic strength. In their opinion, Great Britain, or Western Europe in general, developed at the expense of Asian countries and its colonies, exploiting their resources, and therefore cannot be considered the creator of the global economy. Europe probably achieved industrialization, and with it wealth, out of sheer luck. However, Vries is keen to highlight the fact that we cannot compare British development to Chinese development and vice versa as the overall situations in which those countries evolved were completely different. A point that the author wants to highlight is that, on the one hand, compared to China, even before industrialization, England was inclined towards mechanical and technological innovations, since its main goal was to achieve a strong economic system. China, on the other hand, placed a lot of importance on human labor, in fact, the most important unit of production was the family itself. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Customize essay Furthermore, there was also a huge difference in terms of military organization: England had always been more militarily organized than China, which had difficulty defeating even the weakest enemies. In conclusion, if it is true that the approach to this topic of the Californian school, with its innovation, has influenced in many ways the way in which we look at the economic history of the world, the arguments presented are not always congruent with each other. It would be really convenient to see and study the development of companies individually since they cannot be compared to each other.