The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia

The European Miracle is a book I have been meaning to read for years. Having finally done so, I found it a pleasure to read, a work which explains much of the past in ways which illuminate the present.If you are looking for abstract theorising, this is not the book. If you are looking for a book of excellent scholarship, judicious judgement and clear prose which considers the breadth of causal factors, this is definitely your book.Jared Diamond in his splendid Guns, Germs, Steel asked the questions 'why civilisation?' and 'why Eurasia?'. This asks a later question, 'why Europe?'I did find the way Jones notes the striking institutional similarities between Japan and Europe but then moves on a bit disappointing. But the great thing about this book is you can fill in the blanks for yourself.Jones' key analytical point -- that marginal differences, if they persist over centuries, can have huge long term consequences -- is very powerful and conveyed powerfully.I particularly appreciated the striking delineation of how different the state as it evolved in Europe, and the European experience of the state, was from that of Asia. Once you see that, much subsequent history makes a great deal of sense.His discussion of the European state system is illuminating, and encompasses (but is not specifically concerned with) local differences. One can see much more powerfully some of the effects of globalisation Friedman pointed to in the Lexus and the Olive Tree.There is a great deal more in this book. Read it, to understand the past that makes the present much more explicable.