The subject of this book is a big one: Why did economic growth and development begin in Europe? They had after all been more likely to emerge in other parts of the world. The book, then, is concerned with how technical change, structural change, and income growth all got started, that is to say with a complex of issues at the heart of economic history. It is also concerned with historical geography insofar as place (in the sense of natural environment and the areal differentiation of political society) affected the shape of economic change. Comparisons with areas outside Europe are therefore made in an attempt to see what was special about the European case.

With a canvas as broad as this, touching on the experience of three-quarters of the world's population over several centuries and obliging us to rely on secondary sources, we should be prepared to consider all sorts of explanations. There is no completely satisfactory, uncontestable theory on this scale. The vehemence with which the exponents of one scheme or another assert that theirs is the answer shows that social scientific history remains immature, and that some of its practitioners are not yet mature enough to live with the uncertainty associated with hypotheses that are hard to bring to a conclusive test.

In the circumstances comparative history seems a less predetermined way than grand theory for weeding out explanations that may have local explanatory power but lack any general application.