Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson

The critically acclaimed and bestselling book of economics and political science that reveals why some nations prosper, while others remain mired in poverty.

NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER

Finalist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award

Picked as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, the Financial Times, The Economist, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, the Christian Science Monitor, the Plain Dealer

Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is our man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). Korea, to take just one example, is a remarkably homogenous 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 differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created those two different institutional trajectories. Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, among them:

Will China’s economy continue to grow at such a high speed and ultimately overwhelm the West?

Are America’s best days behind it? Are we creating a vicious cycle that enriches and empowers a small minority?