For Teachers: Lessons

Rethinking the rise of the West: The Great Divergence Debate

Konstantin Georgidis, Canterbury School, Ft. Myers, Florida

INTRODUCTION

Goals

1. An awareness of the importance of systems of international exchange as factors contributing to the rise of the west.
2. An understanding of the logic of the method of historical inquiry by means of a comparison and assessment of the different ways in which historians in the last two centuries have interpreted the dominance of the West in global affairs.
3. An appreciation of the issues examined in the debate amongst contemporary scholars who have offered explanations of the great divergence in the development paths of the West and the East