Daron AcemoÄŸlu
Hardcover | Pages: 544 pages Rating: 4.06 | 27486 Users | 2678 Reviews
Details Containing Books Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
| Title | : | Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty |
| Author | : | Daron AcemoÄŸlu |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 544 pages |
| Published | : | March 20th 2012 by Crown Business (first published March 2012) |
| Categories | : | Economics. Nonfiction. Politics. History. Business |
Interpretation To Books Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
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.
Specify Books Conducive To Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
| Original Title: | Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty |
| ISBN: | 0307719219 (ISBN13: 9780307719218) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Lionel Gelber Prize Nominee (2013), Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Nominee for Shortlist (2012), Arthur Ross Book Award for Honorable Mention (2013), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2012) |
Rating Containing Books Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Ratings: 4.06 From 27486 Users | 2678 ReviewsWrite-Up Containing Books Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
The book is written for a general audience, and if you're feeling smart and ambitious, it is well worth reading. It aims to be the "Guns, Germs, and Steel" of the social sciences. The thesis in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is that Geography/Climate is Destiny. Civilization arose and thrived where geography and climate endowed people with the most nutritious and easily cultivatable food. Those locations created dynamic human societies that gave rise to complex socio-political institutions,Such an insightful and shocking book! The examples are very well-explained, and I truly enjoyed thinking and discussing the points raised in this book. Only if more people would read this book and understand that it is not for the lack of aid to poor countries, but the very political and economical structure of the country that makes it poor. The whole inclusive and extractive political-economical standpoint is very interesting. The only nitpick I would comment on: the book suffers from
Why Nations Fail is a well-written book and proposes a hypothesis about the prosperity and poverty of different nations. The authors present the "inclusive" and "exclusive" political and economical systems in the first chapter and the rest of the book is only different examples of these systems.The repetition of one statement many times in the book is a bit annoying and I think the book could be written in some short articles instead of 500 pages book.
By Pierre BriançonThe book begins in Nogales, a city divided by a fence along the border of Arizona and Mexico, and ends 450 pages later in China, with the story of a young entrepreneur arrested in 2004 for having started a large steel plant competing with the state-owned companies. In between Why Nations Fail is a highly readable narrative of a breathtaking trip: from the Neolithic Revolution to 16th century England, from Spains Philip II to Stalin, from the Mayan city-states to the Portuguese
Why is it that there are such huge differences is living standards around the world? Why is it, that certain nations have become rich and will become ever more richer, while other countries time and time again, fail to improve their living standards?In this book, Daron AcemoÄŸlu proposes a refreshingly simple theory that explains the main contours of economic and political development around the world sine the Neolithic Revolution. The theory discards some existing (and widely accepted) theories
Actually, I didn't really like WNF. I believe there is real value in the concept of extractive institutions, but the book did a poor job of presenting it. In general, they spent too much time on historical illustrations (probably 80% of the book). It is very hard to extract their conclusions which are hidden away among the historical examples. Also, I felt they spent too much time branding this as extractive and that as inclusive without detailing why it is so.Any good theory should be
Despite the hutzpah of a title like WHY NATIONS FAIL, there's nothing in the text itself that I found disagreeable, and I've read a lot of different economic and political theories of wealth over the years.Of course, there have been a lot of armchair historians and armchair economists and armchair politicians, so who knows if 20/20 vision is really accurate? They could all be riffing on one fundamental theory or another and making a messy conclusion. Right? The beauty of this one is pretty
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