The European Miracle

The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia is a book written by Eric Jones in 1981 providing a historical interpretation of the sudden rise of Europe during the late Middle Ages. Surging ahead of the Islamic and Chinese civilizations in the early modern period, the book claims, Europe rose in global power and prominence to a complete domination of world trade and politics that remained unchallenged until the early 20th century.

This process started with the first European contacts and subsequent colonization of great expanses of the world. The Industrial Revolution further reinforced it.

Jones's book gave rise to the term European miracle. It is closely related to the idea of the Great Divergence, which applies a similar lens to a later period in history, theorizing the 18th-century culmination of the European miracle process and the subsequent "imperial century" of Britain.