The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
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''The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor'' is a 1998 book by historian and economist David Landes (1924–2013). Landes attempted to explain why some countries and regions experienced near miraculous periods of explosive growth while the rest of the world stagnated. The book compared the long-term
economic histories Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and inst ...
of different regions, specifically Europe, United States,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, the Arab world, and Latin America. In addition to analyzing economic and
cliometric Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called new economic history or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and e ...
figures, he credited intangible assets, such as culture and enterprise, to explain economic success or failure. Landes was Emeritus Professor of Economics and Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University.


Content

In ''The Wealth and Poverty of Nations'', Landes revives, at least in part, several theories he believes have been incorrectly discarded by academics over the previous forty years: * The 'cultural thesis' or Protestant work ethic of
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
, whereby the values imposed by the Protestant religion on its adherents would have pushed them to value hard work, timeliness, enterprise, free market and free-thinking to a much greater extent than for their Catholic brethren, which would explain the great success of northern Protestant regions such as the Netherlands, Great Britain, Denmark and parts of Germany as compared to southern Catholic nations such as Spain and France. * The 'hydraulic thesis' in
Karl A. Wittfogel Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896 – 25 May 1988) was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. He was originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, but after the Second World War, he was a ...
's '' Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power'', in which despots would control the use of water in order to submit the population to its will. * The 'climate thesis' that posits that
tropical climes The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred ...
are, ''
ceteris paribus ' (also spelled '; () is a Latin phrase, meaning "other things equal"; some other English translations of the phrase are "all other things being equal", "other things held constant", "all else unchanged", and "all else being equal". A statement ...
'', poor candidates for development. * Many of the theories of
Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...
, whose '' Wealth of Nations'' is borrowed from for the title. He also spends a good deal of effort to debunk claims that the
Asian miracle The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese language, Chinese and Korean language, Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Economy of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Economy of Singapore, Singapore ...
did not happen, was not significant, or was financed by
European colonialism The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turkish people, Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the mode ...
, and he draws a correlation between the economic level of a country and the way it treats its women. In short, he argues that the vast economic growth of the Industrial Revolution was no accident but instead resulted from several qualities of Europe, including its climate, political competition, economic freedom and attitude towards science and religion, more specifically from certain countries in Western Europe, primarily England.


Criticism and response

Critics have charged Landes with eurocentrism in his analysis, a charge which Landes himself does not deny; in fact, he embraces it explicitly, arguing that an explanation for an economic miracle that happened originally only in Europe (though he deals with the later "
Asian miracle The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese language, Chinese and Korean language, Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Economy of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Economy of Singapore, Singapore ...
" in ''Wealth and Poverty'') must of necessity be a Eurocentric analysis, thus siding at least at some level with thinkers such as Bernard Lewis. Following Daniel Bell, knowledge is the necessary link between "The European miracle" and the American post-industrial society. Landes and Andre Gunder Frank, author of ''ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age'' (), are noted for having come to very different conclusions about the long-term significance of economic developments in "the West" during the modern era and publicly debated their findings in 1998 at Northwestern University. Additionally, an alternate theory relies on literacy and the gap between Protestants and Catholics as an explanation for the difference in economic results. The economist Paul Krugman remarked in "The Trouble with History", an article published on his MIT-hosted blog, that the book, while containing an enormous amount of information, offered very few ideas. "What oes.. Landes actually believe? And the answer, which seems to me to be damning, is that I am not sure. ..So I am still waiting for a book that helps me understand what really happened in this utterly perplexing century.... Whoever writes that book will have to be a person unafraid of offering theories as well as facts, and therefore of saying things that might turn out to be wrong."


See also

* Great Divergence * '' Guns, Germs, and Steel'' * '' The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers'' * ''
The Civilizing Process ''The Civilizing Process'' is a book by German sociologist Norbert Elias. It is an influential work in sociology and Elias' most important work. It was first published in Basel, Switzerland in two volumes in 1939 in German as ''Über den Prozeß ...
'' * '' The European Miracle'' * '' The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community'' * '' The Clash of Civilizations'' * ''
A Farewell to Alms ''A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World'' is a 2007 book about economic history by Gregory Clark. It is published by Princeton University Press. The book's title is a pun on Ernest Hemingway's novel, '' A Farewell to Arms''. ...
'' * '' Civilization: The West and the Rest''


References


External links


Economic History Debate between David Landes and Andre Gunder Frank on C-SPAN2
(Northwestern University World History Center, 1998-12-02)
David Landes discusses ''The Wealth and Poverty of Nations'' on C-SPAN2
(Boston Public Library, 1998-03-10)



by
J. Bradford DeLong James Bradford "Brad" DeLong (born June 24, 1960) is an economic historian who is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. DeLong served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Clinto ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wealth and Poverty of Nations, The 1998 non-fiction books 20th-century history books Books about cultural geography Books about economic history Books about wealth distribution Works about the theory of history