The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor

Blurb

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor, published in 1998, is a book by the late David Landes, formerly Emeritus Professor of Economics and former Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University. In it, Landes elucidates the reasons why some countries and regions of the world experienced near miraculous periods of explosive growth while the rest of the world stagnated. He does this by comparing the long-term economic histories of different regions of the world, giving priority to Europe and the United States, as well as Japan, China, the Arab world, and Latin America. In addition to analyzing economic and cliometric figures, he gives substantial credit to such intangible assets as culture and enterprise in the different societies he examines in order to explain economic success or failure.
In doing so, he revives, at least in part, several theories he believes have been incorrectly discarded by academics over the last 40 years, including: