Why Nations Fail
The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
About the book
Economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that neither culture, climate nor geography explains why some countries grow rich while others stay poor. Their answer is man-made political and economic institutions: rules that let people keep what they earn, and pluralistic politics that let new inventions displace old ones. The book opens with the two halves of Nogales, one in Arizona and one in Sonora, then ranges across North and South Korea, the Soviet Union, Maya city-states and imperial Rome. Along the way it disputes rival theories from Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Sachs and Max Weber. The authors later shared the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Bill Gates flagged it in a year-end reading list as one of two books posing big questions about social change and progress in technology, and Mark Zuckerberg chose it for his A Year of Books series.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Mark Zuckerberg (CEO/Facebook)
My next book for A Year of Books is Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson.
This book explores the different kinds of social institutions and incentives that nations have applied to encourage prosperity, economic development and elimination of poverty.
This is a good complement to our last book, Portfolios of the Poor, which focused on how people live in poverty. This one discusses why poverty exists and how to reduce it.
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
"I read two books that raise big, interesting questions about social change and technological progress. I’m planning to write longer reviews of each of these books, but let me flag them for you now. One is Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.The topic of this book is why some countries have prospered and created great living conditions for their citizens while others have not. This is an important topic, which I care a lot about. The book makes an appealing argument that economic development depends on political institutions that protect individual rights. It is well written and very easy to read with lots of interesting historical stories about different countries. But it is a major disappointment. Its analysis is vague and simplistic. I’ll explain more in a longer review."
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Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson
Often recommended alongside
- The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (2 shared recommenders)