Part I. Conceptual issues: human development and capitalist growth : The history of human development as the subject of history

The construction of the European miracle

Profit-seeking under actually existing capitalism and human development

Part II. Capitalist competition and human development in Europe : The race for dominance among the western European countries since the sixteenth century

Population growth and mortality between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries: a first look

The Netherlands: rise and fall of a hegemonic power

The delayed transition to a low-mortality regime in Europe and North America

Literacy in Western Europe since the sixteenth century

Part III. The world beyond Europe in the age of emergence of European dominance : China's economic development and the quality of life between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries

India under Mughal rule and after

Conducting trade in Asia before and after the European advent

Reconsidering Japanese exceptionalism

Capitalist competition, colonialism and the physical well-being of non-European peoples

The civilizing mission and racialization: from Native Americans to Asians

The civilizing mission in lands taken by the European settlers from the original inhabitants

Intercontinental resource flows sustaining the ascent of the European powers

Colonial tribute and profits, 1870s onward

Demographic disasters in the colonies and semicolonies in the heyday of European colonialism

Part IV. The twentieth century: anti-systemic struggles, wars and challenges to global capital

Setting the stage for megawars

Revolution, Nazism, Japanese militarism and World War II

Imperialism and wars in the late twentieth century

Capitalism and uneven development in the twentieth century

Destruction and renewal in the neoliberal global order

Contradictions, challenges and resistance.