The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (ISBN 0-393-04017-8), published in 1998 (with an epilogue added to the 1999 paperback edition), is a book by David Landes, currently Emeritus Professor of Economics and former Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University. In it, Landes explains the 'European Miracle', or why European societies experienced a period of explosive growth when the rest of the world did not.
In doing so, he revives, at least in ...
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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (ISBN 0-393-04017-8), published in 1998 (with an epilogue added to the 1999 paperback edition), is a book by David Landes, currently Emeritus Professor of Economics and former Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University. In it, Landes explains the 'European Miracle', or why European societies experienced a period of explosive growth when the rest of the world did not.
In doing so, he revives, at least in part, several theories he believes have been unfairly discarded by academics over the last 40 years. Among them:
He also spends a good deal of time in the effort to debunk claims that this miracle did not happen, was not significant, or was financed by European colonialism.
In short, he argues that the vast economic growth of Industrial Revolution was no accident--that several qualities of Europe (its climate, political competition, attitude towards science and religion, etc) and especially certain countries in Europe (firstly England, but...
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