For Teachers: Lessons

Rethinking the rise of the West: The Great Divergence Debate

Konstantin Georgidis, Canterbury School, Ft. Myers, Florida

INTRODUCTION

Procedure

  1. Announce that the class will embark upon a program of investigation of the reasons which explain the dominance of the West in global affairs in the 19th and twentieth centuries.
  2. Divide the class into pairs. Each pair undertakes to become familiar with the views of one of the following scholars:
    1. Immanuel Wallerstein
    2. David Landes
    3. Andre Gunder Frank
    4. Bin Wong
    5. Kenneth Pomeranz
    6. Peer Vries
    7. Philip C. C. Huang