FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS One of the Financial Times ' Best Books of
2019 One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2019 Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize 'This
book is more original and exciting than its predecessor...the highly influential Why Nations
Fail' Martin Wolf Financial Times By the authors of the international bestseller Why Nations
Fail based on decades of research this powerful new big-picture framework explains how some
countries develop towards and provide liberty while others fall to despotism anarchy or
asphyxiating norms - and explains how liberty can thrive despite new threats. Liberty is
hardly the 'natural' order of things usually states have been either too weak to protect
individuals or too strong for people to protect themselves from despotism. There is also a
happy Western myth that where liberty exists it's a steady state arrived at by
'enlightenment'. But liberty emerges only when a delicate and incessant balance is struck
between state and society - between elites and citizens. This struggle becomes self-reinforcing
inducing both state and society to develop a richer array of capacities thus affecting the
peacefulness of societies the success of economies and how people experience their daily
lives. Explaining this new framework through compelling stories from around the world in
history and from today - and through a single diagram on which the development of any state can
be plotted - this masterpiece helps us understand the past and present and analyse the future.
'As enjoyable as it is thought-provoking' Jared Diamond
