Why did modern states and economies develop within European culture, which for so long seemed to be relegated to the margins and to pale in comparison to Asian civilizations? This historical conundrum looms like a shadow over any study of industrialization and economic development. In The European Miracle, Eric Jones chases this shadow back to the beginnings of history, starting from the conditions created by the specific intersections of the natural environment and the political system. The conditions that preceded modern Europe are evaluated on the basis of comparisons with a series of neighboring civilizations.

The part of the book that concerns Turkey is that Jones' questions overlap with the questions we have been asking for more than two centuries about the civilization and culture in which we live: Why are we always behind or seem to be behind? Is the problem only about the transmission of material cultural elements or structures? Is the difference between us and the West a matter of long conjuncture, or is there a more fundamental, difficult to change and therefore more frightening dimension to this difference? The European Miracle, a study of economic history over a very long period of time, provides an alternative framework for answering these questions by including China and India, as well as the Ottoman Empire, in its universe of comparison.