Europe was almost always a loose-knit ‘confederation’ of culturally similar states in whose mutual relations economic strength was only one of several important variables. Religious affiliation, dynastic allegiance, ideology and ethnic cohesion interacted unpredictably with economic forces to ensure the survival of some political and cultural units

On Europe’s Inner Asian frontier, demographic expansion long seemed as hobbled as it was in mainland North America until the 1750s.

The adoption by the provincial gentry of literati ideals (and bureaucratic ambitions) was a vital stage in China’s transition from a semi-feudal society, where power was wielded by great landholders, into an agrarian empire. What made that possible was an imperial system that relied much less on the coercive power of the imperial centre (a clumsy a