Commentators have often compared the recent Great Recession of the United States and Europe to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In both cases, asset prices tumbled, financial systems turned insolvent and demand plummeted. One difference is that in the recent case, we mounted a swifter rescue effort than we did in the 1930s; for instance, Ben S. Bernanke, as chairman of the Federal Reserve in the recent crisis, drew upon his academic research in supporting bailouts and reflating the economy.

This comparison is intriguing, but we may be neglecting other, less obvious and yet more unsettling historical parallels for today’s global economy. For all the talk of the Great Depression, we might look at a different exemplar for modern times, 18th- and 19th-century economic history India. That country’s economic retrogression during that era may help us understand the quandary that some parts of the world face today.

In 1750, India accounted for one-quarter of the world’s manufacturing output, but by 1900 that was down to 2 percent. The West became more productive as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and India lost much of its leading export sector, textiles. While the data is fragmentary, the best estimates show that India’s living standards declined through the middle of the 19th century and that its economy retrogressed, even as it borrowed some technological improvements from the West. India just didn’t do enough to move toward production on a larger scale or with better machines.