Location, location and how the West was won

BBC ^ | November 10th 2010 | Ian Morris, Professor, Stanford University

[November 2010]

They used coal by the 11th century: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999), The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 052166991X (paperback).

The Manchu dynasty cut China off from outside contact. The Ming dynasty before it tried to create rural communities with little trade; a very rigid society. But it’s the Song Dynasty that shows the Chinese pullback from industrialization in around 1000 to 1100. They had incredible technology and structure, but they opted for social order over technological and technical progress.