Prof Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University sums up years of his scholarship in this article.
One of the holy grails of economic history is how and why did Europe experience economic growth in 18th century. Prof Mokyr says there is no one answer:
How and why did the modern world and its unprecedented prosperity begin? Learned tomes by historians, economists, political scientists and other scholars fill many bookshelves with explanations of how and why the process of modern economic growth or ‘the Great Enrichment’ exploded in western Europe in the 18th century. One of the oldest and most persuasive explanations is the long political fragmentation of Europe. For centuries, no ruler had ever been able to unite Europe the way the Mongols and the Mings had united China.
It should be emphasised that Europe’s success was not the result of any inherent superiority of European (much less Christian) culture. It…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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