"[An] excellent overview of Japanese economic development from the Tokugawa (1600-1867) period until 1937 . As major survey of the Japanese experience by a leading scholar of the Great Divergence, Averting a Great Divergence belongs on the shelves of all economic historians interested in comparative economic development." -- EH.Net "[The book] is valuable both for its systematic comparisons and for its polemical stance, which helps clarify key issues. Vries's book is a good and welcome illustration of why non-Japan specialists should be studying Japan." -- Monumenta Nipponica "As an introduction to literature, [it offers] a rich comparative history of Japan, [and will be] popular with Japanese [scholars] of the contemporary world." -- Nihon Kenkyu (Bloomsbury Translation) "This is a heroic undertaking by Professor Peer Vries to deepen our understanding of the Great Divergence in global history by re-examining the historic controversy of Japan's alleged volunteer changes towards modernity which we still know so little about." -- Kent Deng, Professor of Economic History, London School of Economics, UK "A comprehensive, learned, and incisive account of the role that the Japanese state played in the development of the Japanese economy between the Meiji Restoration and World War 2.

Recommended for all scholars of comparative economic and political development." -- Mark Koyama, Associate Professor, George Mason University, USA.