- published: 08 Feb 2016
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The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981), refers to the process by which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged irrefutably during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of the time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire.
The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and the subsequent rise of the colonial empires, the Age of Enlightenment, the Commercial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution and finally the Industrial Revolution. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including government intervention, geography, and customary traditions.
Before the Great Divergence, the core developed areas included East Asia, Western Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. China, Western Europe, and Japan had developed to a relatively high level and began to face constraints on energy and land use, while India still possessed large amounts of unused resources. Shifts in government policy from mercantilism to laissez-faire liberalism aided Western development.
Tim Noah (born December 19, 1951) is an American songwriter, singer, and children's entertainer from Seattle. In the mid-late 1990s, Noah received several Northwest Regional Emmy awards for his role in KOMO-TV's children's show, How 'Bout That.
Noah at one time belonged to the group Tickle Tune Typhoon, and wrote the lyrics for some of their songs, including their theme. He later left the group to become a solo artist. In 1985, he released a movie entitled In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle Woo (WWWWWWW), which was released throughout the U.S. The soundtrack to the video was a previous album by the same name. In 1990, Noah wrote and performed in the independent film Daredreamer.
He has produced several albums, one of which is a Christmas album of five original holiday songs, including "Wackbangklinkn'klang Town". Noah attributes his early musical interest to such rock-and-roll artists as Elvis and The Beatles. Noah went on to host the children's show How 'bout That with producer Ken Morrison, which won four Emmys in 1998 in its first season.