Review Essays
Explaining European Dominance

The 1998 publication of David S. Landes's Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor provided the rationale for these reviews. The essays are another installment in our periodic publication of multiple reviews of books that address issues of broad disciplinary concern as a means of sparking debate among historians of various times and places. In this case, Landes penned a vigorously argued account of the rise of European global dominance over the past two centuries. His Eurocentric argument places the issue in a broad, indeed sweeping, context of world and national histories and asserts the causal importance of seemingly distinctive European cultural characteristics in spurring economic growth and technological development. By addressing these important issues in such a bold and provocative manner, Landes compels us to examine the critical subject of European hegemony anew. Three reviewers have accepted this challenge. Drawn from different fields and forms of history, Joel Mokyr, Donna J. Guy, and Charles Tilly each approach the book and its subject in their own fashion. They unite to provide a broad analytical framework for evaluating Landes's book and the issue of European dominance.

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