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Just finished the 544-page book Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James. A. Robinson. They make a compelling argument about how the failure of nations stems from the nature of its institutions, as opposed to other widely accepted hypotheses like geography, culture, ignorance, or even national IQ.
The size of the book results mostly from a wide-ranging and often detailed account of many historical examples to support their ideas. Even if the reader ultimately is not convinced of the many core points or auxiliary contentions of the book, it’s still a worthwhile read to learn the fascinating general history of many cultures and nations of the world.
After I finished the book, the ideas made sense, but I thought that perhaps the authors were interpreting too much into past History in creating a unified theory of the functioning of the nations. This is especially since the nature and interactions between modern nation-states in a globalized and technology-driven environment may differ vastly, for example, from the context of the colonization of the New World…
