Convergence/Divergence: New Approaches to the Global History of Capitalism Conference

The Global History of Capitalism project, housed within the Oxford Centre for Global History, is a focal point for ongoing scholarship on the history of capitalism. The project promotes an explicitly global perspective that contextualises the history of capitalism beyond the West and investigates the deep institutional roots of capitalist systems. The Global History of Capitalism project hosted the conference ‘Convergence/Divergence: New Approaches to the Global History of Capitalism’ on September 28-29 2019. The conference brought together cultural, economic, and political historians of global capitalism with the aim of starting a new conversation about the relationship between capitalism and global history. The conference organisers took the broad theme of global divergences and convergences (from the 1500s to the present) as the starting point for discussion. Global historians and historians of capitalism continue to debate whether there was a “Great Divergence” between the West and Asia in the nineteenth-century. Presenters discussed the timing and causality of the Great Divergence, tales of convergence between Europe and Asia, and new frameworks of discussion for global economic history. The conference received funding from the Global History of Capitalism Project and Brasenose College, Oxford.