Shortlisted for the Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012 Why are some nations more prosperous than others? Why Nations Fail sets out to answer this question with a compelling & elegantly argued new theory that it is not down to climate geography or culture but because of institutions Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary & historical examples from ancient Rome through the Tudors to modern-day China leading academics Daron Acemoglu & James A Robinson show that to invest & prosper people need to know that if they work hard they can make money & actually keep it
- & this means sound institutions that allow virtuous circles of innovation expansion & peace Based on fifteen years of research & answering the competing arguments of authors ranging from Max Weber to Jeffrey Sachs & Jared Diamond Acemoglu & Robinson step boldly into the territory of Francis Fukuyama & Ian Morris They blend economics politics history & current affairs to provide a new powerful & persuasive way of understanding wealth & poverty