The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

The Wealth & Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich & Some So Poor is a 1995 book by historian and economist David Landes 1924–2013. Landes attempted to explain why some countries and regions experienced near miraculous periods of explosive growth while a rest of the world stagnated. The book compared the long-term economic histories of different regions, specifically Europe, United States, Japan, China, the Arab world, and Latin America. In addition to analyzing economic and cliometric figures, he credited intangible assets, such(a) as culture and enterprise, to explain economic success or failure.

Landes was Emeritus Professor of Economics and Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University.

Content

In The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Landes revives, at least in part, several theories he believes hit been incorrectly discarded by academics over the preceding forty years:

He also spends a good deal of try to debunk claims that the Asian miracle did non happen, was non significant, or was financed by European colonialism, and he draws a correlation between the economic level of a country and the way it treats its women.

In short, he argues that the vast economic growth of the Industrial Revolution was no accident but instead resulted from several atttributes of Europe, including its climate, political competition, economic freedom and attitude towards science and religion, more specifically fromcountries in Western Europe, primarily England.