Comment by pomian

One of the ideas that seems to be missed from the study of history and economy, was the effect on the total destruction of the Japanese and German industrial base - during WWII. Britain and USA, were left with their archaic industrial systems. After WWII, the Japanese and the German steel industry had to be completely reborn. (At the cost of primarily USA financing.) Those two countries had no more relics of the past, and started over, necessarily, with the most modern technology and science. North American industry was in a slow evolution from the 1900's, but Germany and Japan, had a hot start from the 1950-60's. No wonder everyone was impressed by their modern approach to construction, design, manufacturing, which more or less started to out perform USA and Britain in the 70's. China, started it's industrial rebirth even later.