Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography?
Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities.
The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.
Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine.
Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity?
More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world."
Chief, the NuriaStore bookseller –
A novel by Japanese writer Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Its a Bitter-sweet Japanese style story.
Even though the concept is good but writing could be more interesting, there could be more twists and turns. I couldn’t find writing very appealing. maybe because book is more like a playwright. but its a good read.
Story is kind of old age fantasy time travel not sci-fi. There is underground café in small alley, windowless, in working for more than hundred years. It has 4-5 tables and very few customers. Even though it was famous for providing unique experience to customers.
In this coffee shop we meet four customers, who get to experience time travel. there are four short stories interconnected to each other. “The lover” about confronting lover who left them, “Husband an wife” about receiving letter from husband whos losing his memory,
“The sisters” about sisters want to meet for last time, “Mother and child” about meeting daughter they never got chance to know. Only limited characters and single place, so story is light weight.
There are certain rule to go to the past. There is particular sit in café that takes you to your past, and you have to return to the present before coffee gets cold. both person going to past and person they want to meet should have visited that café before and many more.
The chair which takes you to past is permanently occupied by a women in white dress and the only way to sit on chair, when that women gets up to go to bathroom.
With all the rules for time travel, Its seems pointless to go to past. what if you lose track of time and your coffee got cold. and even if you go back to past, whatever you do, It will not change present.