The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy

sions to Karl Marx—represents ideology, despite displays of doubt and demystiacation. Novels uncover social problems but offer no solutions. Nor does the new historicism, though it does suggest, at least anecdotally, post-Marxist approaches to ideology critique. In one way, my discussion is inadequate to the virtuosity of the individual essays in this collection, but this oaw is inherent in the very nature of the assignment (“We sincerely hope that you will not be able to say what it all adds up to,” the authors submit, meta-pretentiously). Products of the new historicism are not intended, any more than Archibald MacLeish’s poem (created not “to mean” but “to be”) to be reduced to prosaic summary; curious readers are free to and their own meanings, puzzles, and pleasures in these essays. Personally, I derived much enjoyment and some proat from the experience, though I could do without all the advertising (including the counter-advertising).