Rating: 
Summary: An Intelligent Book
Review: A great book. Full of facts and stories about human history and how it has affected our abilities to generate economic success. Some argue this book glorifies "Western triumphalism" - nonesense.
Well written, funny at times. Gives one a much better understanding of the state of the modern world and the possibilities that lie ahead. Gives some possible reasons why some are poor and others not.
A book worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm.
Review: Okay, I have to admit I haven't finished reading this book yet. BUT I have one small thing I must point out. When Landes discusses the quincentary of Columbus' landing (in 1992), he implies that "celebrations" of the European discovery of the New World were totally quashed due to being seen as politically incorrect. One of the specific examples he cites was the "1492" exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which he describes as "ABC--Anything But Columbus." Uh--I WENT to that exhibition, and it was ONE-THIRD European art (in addition to 1/3rd Asian and 1/3rd Pre-Columbian). Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! I know it's a small point, but I think it illustrates that a) the author has a tendency to rely on his faulty memory instead of the actual facts and b) he does so because he is eager to push his own views. I'm being nice by suggesting it's faulty memory rather than outright lying.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: While it is easy to get sucked into this book as a result of David Landes' smooth writing style, the content and more importantly the research behind his book is wildly flawed. Landes refers to himself as a source more times than I can count, and relies wholly on Adam Smith as a methodology for his economic analyses. Moreover, he often uses sources out of context. His research has clearly been conducted to prove a point, and not to support a possible hypothesis. He uses sections of several works that disagree with his thesis wholeheartedly just to make his point seem more valid. The bibliography of this book is lengthy and impressive, but the endnotes are certainly not. Not only are both exceptionally dated views of the world, but they are also simply inaccurate. With specific references to his analysis of Latin America, I am exceptionally disturbed. His coloquial writing style, while making the book seem more accessable to readers unfamiliar with development theory, is often offensive to those of us who are aware that the New World's poverty was not as simple as mere "macho warlordism" leading to "economic retardation." His assumptions are abrasive and incorrect. If you purchase this book, do so only to see what all the hype is about but read it with a pound of salt, rather than a grain.
Rating:
Summary: Location, Location, Location.
Review: Excellent explanation on how geographical location either nurished or starved a civilizations evolution.
Rating: 
Summary: The Big Question
Review: You and I are part of a fortunate minority. We are literate, we have access to phones and to the Internet, we are likely (save some unexpected disease or misfortune) to live to an old age. We are almost certainly belonging to what is known as 'The First World', or to small rich minorities within the rest of the world. Most people in this world do not have those privileges - we live in islands of fortune within an ocean of poverty. And professor Landes tries to understand why. He tries to find out what is special about Western civilization (and Japan) - why Japan and the West got rich while the rest of the world lagged behind, and most of it still does. It is by the nature of such a book to be controversial, and Landes doesn't pull his punches; his approach is neoclassicist, although hardly a dogmatic one. He is rough on Postmodernists, Saidian Anti-Orientalists, French and Japanese protectionists, Spanish Roman Catholics, and many others. Among the reviews you'll read here, Landes irritates Catholics, third world enthusiasts, anti-Western intellectuals, extreme right wind Capitalists, anti-Japanese, and so on, and so on. So, you've got controversy. But what is Landes actually saying? Well, in brief, Landes book focuses on three major reasons for Wealth/Poverty: Geography, Infrastructure, and Culture. The discussion of Geography, early in the book, is at best half hearted. Some of the points seem valid - but you're always inclined to say 'On the other hand'. Are there really fewer diseases in Europe then in Africa? maybe, but transportation is easier. The black death annihilated a third of the European population in the 13th century. Does Heat makes labour harder and less efficient? I guess the builders of the Pyramids haven't heard Landes's thesis - or maybe hardships can be overcomming with whipping. The best parts of the book deal with Infrastructure. In these, Landes has three main themes: Freedom, Capitalism and Science (Or, if you wish, Anarchy, Greed and Heresy). Freedom allows people to do things. Landes portrayal of the centrally planned economies of ancient China, where the Emperor ruled everything, is powerful, and it seems to play a large role in the lack of initiative in China, despite the great achievements. Capitalism, most noticeably in the form of Greed and Competition, drives people forward. Again, Landes comparison between the Chinese and the European Sea quests are enlightening. Europeans went in small ships, eager to outdo the competition and to come back making a fortune. The Chinese went with huge Ships, symbols of the empire rather than instruments of trade. They were unprofitable, victims of the ruler's whim, and, without a strong faction of interested merchants, had no chance of continuing throughout. Also interesting is that Europeans went looking for India and spices, while China was self-sufficient. Science - Chinese science was much more sophisticated than European science back in the year 1,000. The Indians have invented the zero. But nowhere except in Europe did science work methodically, nowhere else was it progressive. Newton is famous of saying that he stood on the shoulder of giants - discoveries in China and the rest of the world were rarely followed up - gunpowder was discovered in China much before it was in Europe, but the Chinese never used it for weapons. In Europe, it became part of the war methods almost immediately. Landes discussions of clocks and glasses are particularly telling. The Third Element - Culture - is the one with which I have the most trouble. Landes repeatedly attacks economists for discounting culture (for example in the last chapter, page 517 in my edition). He claims that they disregard it because it can't be quantified. Wrong. The reason Economists distrust culture is because it is such a 'one size fits all' argument. Japanese responds to the west was everything the Chinese should have done but didn't. ... Culture. Arab nations are stuck well behind everyone else, despite the great advantage they have in the shape of oil. ... Culture. Asians manage to pull themselves along, while most of the third worlders can't. ... Well, culture, again. I'm not saying that Culture plays no part. Obviously it does. But it becomes an obstacle to understanding, and Landes can support it only with anecdotal evidence (a lovely and touching story of a Japanese woman), and unanswered question (Is Islam a cause for the suppression of women? maybe). Despite this problem, this is a fascinating book. Yes, it is a little too pro-Western. The problem is really more one of emphasis than one of facts - in my view, Landes is pretty close the mark usually, but he much underestimates the responsibility of the West for African poverty. Something's are left relatively unexplained - the current fast rise of China, which might undertake the point Landes made about the vitality of Freedom But ultimately, as Landes acknowledges, no one book can solve the question of poverty and wealth. The answer is necessarily multi-faceted. 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations' (neat name, also) is a well-written and intelligent treatment of the question.
Rating:
Summary: A wealth of insight
Review: Landes offers a fascinating journey through modern cultural and economic history in a very readable style. He has strong, well-supported opinions which he expresses forthrightly and often amusingly. Those who disagree with his views of modern society will no doubt take umbrage. However, his ideas remain grounded in the realism of both historical fact and economic principles. Other authors have better expressed some of his conclusions in more focused ares, but few have painted with such a broad brush. I refer specifically to Thomas Sowell's "Culture" trilogy as an example of a deeper description of the derivation of cultural traits. Or Francis Fukuyama's "Trust" or Michael Barone's "The New Americans" as examples of demonstrating the value of cultural capital in social progress. His discussion of British culture which fostered the Industrial Revolution was somewhat superficial (cf. Herman, "How the Scots Invented the Modern World"). But in sum, this is a masterful, enjoyable, and extremely informative book for anyone interested in gaining a better perspective on global economics.
Rating:
Summary: A flawed analysis....
Review: It is a pity that in his analysis of the superiority of western culture, that he doesn't take into account the fact that the original industrial revolution was fuelled by the natural resources of Europe's colonies and the western expansion of the US. Basiscally western culture's prosperity was built on the back of free labour provided by the slave trade, the conquering of indigenous peoples (including the American indian) and generally the rape and pillage of economic resources of a large part of the world. Mr. Landes neglets the fact that the countries that industrialised during the industrial revolution all had the economic benefit of colonial resources. Those former colonies today trying to industrialise don't have this particular "cultural" advantage of having areas to conquer and exploit. Sorry this book is at best naive, at worst self serving.
Rating:
Summary: A wealth of insight into the poverty of socialism
Review: ---
I'm a physician, and as a pre-med major in college I was fortunate enough to have been able to avoid any undergraduate courses in economics. For this reason, I was not obliged to un-learn the tenets of a typical Keynesian/Samuelsonian "Econ 101" indoctrination, and was free to pursue an autodidactic inquiry into the principles of political economics when I got into medical school (during the Carter administration, when the U.S. national economy, under the gentle guidance of Mr. Carter and his buddies, was emulating the *S.S. Titanic* en route to the bottom of the Atlantic). I came to the study of economics, therefore, as one comes to the study of pathology -- and during the Carter years, the study of the U.S. economy was akin to the study of European public health during the Black Death. I began to read extensively, to question the accepted verities of my father's generation (which unexamined "verities," I discovered, had been precisely what got us *into* that bloody mess), and to develop a "disease model" which explained with satisfactory fidelity the pathogenesis of what was being called "The Carter Malaise." What I find remarkable about Landes' THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS is the fact that Dr. Landes had actually come to an analysis of economic "physiology" which is remarkably congruent to the one I figured out for myself while reading Henry Hazlitt's THE CONQUEST OF POVERTY and Frederic Bastiat's ECONOMIC SOPHISTRIES between memorization of Grant's ANATOMY and hammering on chapters from Goodman & Gilman's THE PHARMACOLOGICAL BASIS OF THERAPEUTICS. To put it succinctly, Dr. Landes has discovered that an economy can only function properly if the rights of the individual human being -- specifically the rights to life, liberty, and property -- are not transgressed against. These negative rights (upon which are predicated all positive rights) function economically in much the same way that negative feedback functions in bodily physiology to secure that homeostatic internal environment wherein the individual cells of the body can survive and provide for one another. An economy, like the internal environment of a healthy human body, regulates itself. Attempts to consciously command the economy -- like efforts to purposefully regulate bodily physiology -- will always run into problems of deranged feedback (as, indeed, they always have). The *only* law that operates invariably in the realm of *dirigiste* political economics is the law of unintended consequences (as "The Carter Malaise" demonstrated so exquisitely). That such a discovery should be articulated by an emeritus member of the academic staff of Harvard University struck me as just plain astonishing. How the devil did Dr. Landes manage to disguise such a capacity for common sense during his years in Stalingrad-on-the-Charles, anyway? Surely anyone with the ability to perceive such a truth -- and speak it so eloquently -- should have been long ago sniffed out by his raveningly socialist colleagues, to be killed and eaten thereby. I find WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS to have been encyclopedic, good-humored, erudite, and eminently readable. It has obviously enraged a great many people of socialist inclinations (all of whom soundly *deserve* to be enraged), and is quite the most "politically incorrect" work of mainstream nonfiction I've read in the past eight years.
Rating:
Summary: this is not a serious book, mostly subjective
Review: The author pretends to spend hundreds of pages giving his "opinion" on why some nations are rich and others are poor, but in reality he judges from his own subjective opinion the history of the nations, without any serious criteria. For instance, when comparing the spanish conquest of Mexico and South America, and the British conquest of North America, he says "If I had been a native, I would have preferred to be killed by an english than by a spaniard". The rest of the book is like that.
Rating:
Summary: An Insightful Approach
Review: Mr. Landes wrote an excellent book approaching the question of why some nations succeed while others fail. It takes a look at one of the single most important yet overlooked traits of a society, personal freedom. From the acceptance of multiple religons in England to the diverse makeup of America, the trait of progress that matters the most is the overlooking of religon and the freedom to pass information. Traditional Marxist's will find this book detestable. It shows in many ways why Marx was flawed. It also shows the religous zealots that moderation is important. His approach is interesting because he puts examples in that are well documented. The view is just adjusted to get a better perspective of the data. For the nay sayers who deride the book for its lack of social grouping and naming of social elites, it does not follow the normal Marxist mantra's. Personal freedom is the keystone of his hypothesis. I will say however, it is a bit dry.
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