Joel Mokyr

How the social organisation 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 civilisation. Yet Europe became the birthplace of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, driving the Great Enrichment, while China stagnated until the end of the...

Why did Enlightenment culture spark the Industrial Revolution? During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the...