I'm going to take a broader approach to this question.
There is still no agreed upon answer for why the Great Divergence occurred: why Europe broke out of the Malthusian trap and put the world on a course of rapid gains in prosperity.
Most of the answers that have been proposed seem fairly ad hoc and often fail to explain why it didn't happen elsewhere or earlier.
I'm going to take a broader approach to this question.
There is still no agreed upon answer for why the Great Divergence occurred: why Europe broke out of the Malthusian trap and put the world on a course of rapid gains in prosperity.
Most of the answers that have been proposed seem fairly ad hoc and often fail to explain why it didn't happen elsewhere or earlier.