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698 reviews for:
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson
3.83 AVERAGE
698 reviews for:
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson
3.83 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
medium-paced
Required reading alongside Guns, Germs, and Steel. A slightly more sophisticated thesis, centering around much more human forces. Read both.
Maybe 4.5 stars.
It's good, and does a really good job of explaining its central concept: that institutions are either inclusive (pluralistically involving society) or extractive (wherein an elite wrings whatever they can from society).
My primary concern, even with many examples provided within the book, is that this assumption is overly-simplistic. My secondary concern is the writers are overly optimistic.
Concern 1 seems to attribute nearly every sustained success to increased plurality, ignoring other potential factors. This is especially true given what seems to be a seismic shift away from the world being dominated by the pluralistic Western powers and towards the more autocratic Asian societies in the near-future. The authors also don't necessarily do a great job of refuting some alternate theories: while Modernization Theory is easy to dump on, the book seems to assume a level playing field whereby alternate-timeline Peru would've been a conquering power had their institutions become more pluralistic earlier, ignoring a noted deficit in available resources and other geopolitical factors (Europe got good at war out of necessity, due to the availability of resources, the centers/trade of technology, and huge varied population in a small area).
As for optimism, the authors interpret the Civil Rights Movement in the US of the 1960s as the success of inclusive institutions, while I see the very situation existing as the failure of a less-extractive society. There is very little investigation into how "inclusive" societies are themselves hugely extractive. A better term would be less extractive vs. more extractive.
So it's good, and thought provoking, and insanely chock-full of examples. But I wish there was a bit more meat on the bone. Ultimately I'm just not expert enough or well-read enough to properly counter or endorse many claims in the book, but something about it just didn't sit right.
Why the West Rules (For Now) remains my fav of the recent macro-historic books.
It's good, and does a really good job of explaining its central concept: that institutions are either inclusive (pluralistically involving society) or extractive (wherein an elite wrings whatever they can from society).
My primary concern, even with many examples provided within the book, is that this assumption is overly-simplistic. My secondary concern is the writers are overly optimistic.
Concern 1 seems to attribute nearly every sustained success to increased plurality, ignoring other potential factors. This is especially true given what seems to be a seismic shift away from the world being dominated by the pluralistic Western powers and towards the more autocratic Asian societies in the near-future. The authors also don't necessarily do a great job of refuting some alternate theories: while Modernization Theory is easy to dump on, the book seems to assume a level playing field whereby alternate-timeline Peru would've been a conquering power had their institutions become more pluralistic earlier, ignoring a noted deficit in available resources and other geopolitical factors (Europe got good at war out of necessity, due to the availability of resources, the centers/trade of technology, and huge varied population in a small area).
As for optimism, the authors interpret the Civil Rights Movement in the US of the 1960s as the success of inclusive institutions, while I see the very situation existing as the failure of a less-extractive society. There is very little investigation into how "inclusive" societies are themselves hugely extractive. A better term would be less extractive vs. more extractive.
So it's good, and thought provoking, and insanely chock-full of examples. But I wish there was a bit more meat on the bone. Ultimately I'm just not expert enough or well-read enough to properly counter or endorse many claims in the book, but something about it just didn't sit right.
Why the West Rules (For Now) remains my fav of the recent macro-historic books.
slow-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced
Great piece of research challenging the historically colonial view of development.
This has been on my tbr list for some time and I am glad I finally read it!
The theory for development and prosperity of countries was new to me in this way. I wish we had read this in my introductory politics course in uni instead of mostly Fukuyama!
For someone who does not study international relations, public policy, politics or something like that, the book starts to get repetitive and too much information after the first few chapters. It was great to learn about many case studies, but I honestly could not keep up with the countries and their histories all the time. Potentially good to make the point, but hard for me to stay focused.
The theory for development and prosperity of countries was new to me in this way. I wish we had read this in my introductory politics course in uni instead of mostly Fukuyama!
For someone who does not study international relations, public policy, politics or something like that, the book starts to get repetitive and too much information after the first few chapters. It was great to learn about many case studies, but I honestly could not keep up with the countries and their histories all the time. Potentially good to make the point, but hard for me to stay focused.
This book has taught me one valuable lesson: China won't be able to take over the world or the economy. Ever. Unless it changes its extractive political institutions.
The authors prove again and again that sustainable economic growth cannot be achieved unless you introduce an inclusive political system. This is mind-boggling, but simply makes sense when you read the book.
The authors prove again and again that sustainable economic growth cannot be achieved unless you introduce an inclusive political system. This is mind-boggling, but simply makes sense when you read the book.
Obviously a great piece of work, impressive level of detail and insight. However, their main thesis could in my opinion have been stated much more briefly, and I felt that they started repeating themselves quite early and often. Probably a lot easier read if you’re into the history for the history’s sake.
Repetitive and not as informational as other reviews lead me to believe. There was a lot of jumping to conclusions that the authors did with little to no real facts to explain their conclusions. It was written by two economists, which would explain that the main message was that the reason some nations win is due to their robust economy that's supposedly unfettered by regulations and that other nations fail due to regulations and or authoritarian regimes.