A Russian-born, Austrian-trained Harvard economic historian, Alexander Gerschenkron never exactly escaped his Russian roots - whether in his economics, his history or his recreational work as a critic of Russian literature. His early work concentrated on development in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. In a celebrated 1947 article, he found the famous "Gerschenkron effect" (i.e. that changing the base year for an index determines the growth rate of the index). His early work (e.g. 1951), often pursued the statistical shenanigans of Soviet planners.
Gerschenkron was also a famous propounder of the "linear stages" theory of economic development, perhaps best demonstrated in his 1962 book. However, he did accept that different periods exhibit different types of development: for instance, with the coexistence of advanced and backward countries, that latter could skip several stages which the former had to go through by adopting their advanced technology. The peculiar paths of industrialization of Meiji Japan and Soviet Russia were regarded as examples of this.
Major Works of Alexander Gerschenkron
Resources on Alexander Gerschenkron