Political competition innovation and growth in the history of Asian civilizations 1. Introduction and overview 2. The political pattern of historical creativity : a theoretical case 3. Creative clusters political fragmentation and cultural heterogeneity : an investigative journey through civilizations East and West 4. Lessons from the history of Imperial China 5. Advantages of centralized and decentralized rule in Japan 6. India 7. Islamic statecraft and the Middle Easts delayed modernization Do political decentralisation and inter state competition favour innovation and growth There has long been a lively debate surrounding this question going back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This book is a new attempt to test its veracity. The existing literature tends to assume that the beneficial effects of inter state competition have been confined to European history. By contrast China India and the Islamic Middle East are regarded as inherently imperial and overcentralised. However these civilisations have not always been unified politically. In their history there have been long spells of decentralised rule or inter state competition. The same is true for Japan. If the Hume Kant hypothesis is correct it should also apply to those periods. This volume analyses the qualitative and quantitative evidence