A stellar trio, and exciting to see the famed Li at last, though it could have done with a dissenting voice in addition. Pat O'Brien worked a miracle in getting Pomeranz to admit there might be something amiss with his picture, if only for the upper-crust (I agree China's probably "flatter" overall, but a few million a bit less relatively affluent at the top isn't the answer to the discrepancy between identifiable output and some of the claims made for the mid-Qing). I have to agree wholly with the statement "In some ways the interesting question is not so much 'Why did certain places fail to industrialise?' but 'Why did any place industrialise?' (13:16): I've been saying the same for years. Unfortunately by fuelling the impression that China was poised for take-off but for some range of constraints or other, Ken's book inadvertently supported the whole notion of later Qing failure vs Georgian/Regency triumph in a race that didn't exist. And he's right that "real" wages are a poor indicator of broader income levels or trends: Postan said as much ("not worth the paper they were written on") for England in earlier centuries. But ludicrously inflated estimates of fibre supply divided by a woefully low population are no better. The way forward is real measures of aggregate and per capita output (no, not those inane 1990 dollars) comparable between regions and over relevant periods, otherwise progress will remain at best a slow and blundering affair.
