The wealth and poverty of nations : why some are so rich and some so poor
"David S. Landes tells the long, fascinating story of wealth and power throughout the world: the creation of wealth, the paths of winners and losers, the rise and fall of nations. He studies history as a process, attempting to understand how the world's cultures lead to - or retard - economic and military success and material achievement." "Countries of the West, Landes asserts, prospered early through the interplay of a vital, open society focused on work and knowledge, which led to increased productivity, the creation of new technologies, and the pursuit of change. Europe's key advantage lay in invention and know-how, as applied in war, transportation, generation of power, and skill in metalwork. Even such now banal inventions as eyeglasses and the clock were, in their day, powerful levers that tipped the balance of world economic power. Today's new economic winners are following much the same roads to power, while the laggards have somehow failed to duplicate this crucial formula for success." "The key to relieving much of the world's poverty lies in understanding the lessons history has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this towering work of history."--Jacket
History
xxi, 650 pages : maps ; 25 cm
9780393040173, 9780393318883, 0393040178, 0393318885
37213494
Nature's Inequalities
Answers to Geography: Europe and China
European Exceptionalism: A Different Path
The Invention of Invention
The Great Opening
Eastward Ho!
From Discoveries to Empire
Bittersweet Isles
Empire in the East
For Love of Gain
Golconda
Winners and Losers: The Balance Sheet of Empire
The Nature of Industrial Revolution
Why Europe? Why Then?
Britain and the Others
Pursuit of Albion
You Need Money to Make Money
The Wealth of Knowledge
Frontiers
The South American Way
Celestial Empire: Stasis and Retreat
Japan: And the Last Shall Be First
The Meiji Restoration
History Gone Wrong?
Empire and After
Loss of Leadership
Winners and
Losers
How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?