The standard narratives of 19th-c. global economic transformation compare and connect patterns of economic change in different regions of the world in distinct ways. The durability of competing explanations for the contrasting economic conditions of countries in the late 18th and early 20th centuries poses a challenge to our efforts to create a more persuasive account of both the momentous changes and the persistence of older economic practicies. This presentation offers one approach focused on the political economies of different countries, influenced by the early modern histories of world regions, the persistence of early modern era connections among world regions as well as the new problems and possibilities that emerged in varied ways across the 19th-c. globe.