Brilliant and engagingly written Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the
experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor divided by wealth and poverty
health and sickness food and famine? Is it culture the weather geography? Perhaps
ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply no. None of these factors is either
definitive or destiny. Otherwise how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest
growing countries in the world while other African nations such as Zimbabwe the Congo and
Sierra Leone are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie
economic success (or lack of it). Korea to take just one of their fascinating examples is a
remarkably homogeneous nation yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth
while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a
society that created incentives rewarded innovation and allowed everyone to participate in
economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the
government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly
the people of the north have endured decades of famine political repression and very
different economic institutions-with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due
to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on
fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical
evidence from the Roman Empire the Mayan city-states medieval Venice the Soviet Union Latin
America England Europe the United States and Africa to build a new theory of political
economy with great relevance for the big questions of today including: - China has built an
authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the
West? - Are America's best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which
efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers
a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the
rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or
learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson's breakthrough ideas on the interplay
between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way
you look at-and understand-the world.
