Rating: 
Summary: Superb historical overview, but it doesn't quite deliver...
Review: "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why some are so rich and some are so poor" is a reflective, interesting, and a well-written book. The author possesses an amazing knowledge, both historical and geographical. While he is an academic and therefore at times goes into unnecessary detail or support of his arguments, he serves us the occasional entertaining anecdote, which makes this book both readable and funny. To explain why the economic development in the world (from about 1500 to the present) has happened at different paces and with different degrees of success is not an easy task to undertake. To do so successfully is even harder. Landes strongly advocates the point of view that cultural values, such as technology, thriftiness, work ethic, and women, are the primary factors of economic success or failure. I truly enjoyed reading the authors observations on the various cultures and their economic successes and failures (a little minus here is Landes tendency to lean on the cultural stereotype just a few too many times). I now have a better understanding for the importance of cultural values in the economic area. Why the UK fell behind the rest of Europe, or why China by deliberately choosing to isolate the country, lost their economical/technological jump-start on Europe. I also have a greater awareness of the effects of religion; that there can be little doubt that the religious-based repression/bias towards women will continue to slow the economic development and success of the societies in which this still occur. There is an abundance of interesting and useful information in this book, and I did learn a lot of new facts from this book. Nevertheless, I am not sure that I am left with a better understanding of the key factors that drive economic success. I can't help feeling that I worked my way through the five hundred pages waiting for the "little extra" - that never came. So even if Landis handles the facts and analysis very well, I still miss is the one, grand theory that explains it all. Bottom line, "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why some are so rich and some are so poor" is a superb historical overview, but it doesn't quite deliver what it promises - the one theory that wraps up everything, and offers some insights to the question that we all ask ourselves: "Why some are so rich and some are so poor".
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing but flawed
Review: This book is fascinating in places, but repetitive and trite in others. Frankly while more quantitative and traditional in its approach, it pales in comparison to the sweeping and much more engaging treatment of essentially the same subject in Jared Diamond's brilliant Guns, Germs and Steel.
Rating: 
Summary: Diversity is a resource; cultural values matter
Review: Professor Landes has executed a tour de force, a deep, penetrating work that should be required of all college students. He attends to the historic question: Why are some nations so rich and others so poor? Geography matters, e.g., cold weather countries do economically better than tropical. Climate matters, e.g.,moderate climates are better for growth than are extreme climates. Technology matters e.g., eyeglasses added years to the productive work of skilled crafstment hundrds of years ago. Most of all, culture matters. Landes indirectly yet quite adroitly shows that diversity in all its forms is a resource and that nations benefit from diversity and their other resources in matters of economic and human development if -- perhaps only if -- that nation forges consensus around common values: political and economic freedom; private property and the rule of law; a system of progression and success through merit; and education, training and entrepreneurship. The anecdotes are plentiful. The data are useful. The scope of the work is incredible. The message is clear and well made. Sure, the most politically correct skeptics will carp. But the world still has not yet witnessed a major economic power between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. A small portion of the world's population produces an abundance of the globe's wealth (and, yes, of course, consumes much of what it makes). And the link between political freedom (and its correlates) and economic growth is very clear. Tyranny eventually fails. Technology will eventually be adopted and exploited. A nation's common, progressive, evolving, empowering culture provides the template for economic development and success. Full marks, professor.
Rating: 
Summary: The Wealth and Poverty of Cultures
Review: I enjoy picking up and reading "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by David Landes. Because of its length, this book is best read by looking up one topic and tracing it through the book. The language Landes uses is often out of the reach of the average reader. For example, "analphabetization" is used when drawing a distinction between universal literacy and literacy among a class outside the church. The Guianas are called "gores," a word rich in meaning to geographers. One reviewer objects to saying that Japan is a "good" colonizer. But colonizers do not need to be gentle or kind. The Roman Empire, for example, was rather cruel to most of its criminals. The role of women is discussed. But there is a difference between how industrializing Britain and America viewed women when they were excluded from most positions, and how Islamic and Hispanic countries view women. The British and Americans treated women as weak, but insisted that men give them social deference because of their roles as homemakers and mothers. But certain strains of Islam, however, assure men that they are naturally superior to any women, no matter what deeds they commit in God's name. And in Latin American machismo, men are free to do whatever they want while women weakly submit. The Protestant work ethic is something I believe in enthusiastically. Robert Merton pointed out that Protestantism significantly helped modern science in its rise. In fact, many of the best known scientists of a century or more ago, such as Faraday and Lister, were creationists. Throughout its early history, the Royal Society in London had more than its share of Puritans and Protestants. Max Weber wrote about Protestantism as a catalyst in the rise of capitalism; Landes adds more support to his theory. It is important that many groups of Protestants were ready to accept and apply whatever the Bible said, literally, because they rejected the rites and theology imposed by a church. Landes does not accept evangelical Protestantism without question. This makes reading his book that much more refreshing.
Rating: 
Summary: Provocative, but weak on facts and logic.
Review: Some reviewers have suggested that this book is provocative, and worth reading. I would agree with the first part only. However, the provocation and discomfort it causes have little to do with facts and figures which could challenge one's economic prejudices, and much to do with Mr. Landes' scatterbrained approach to history and economics, and his overbearing arrogance in (often ridiculous) commentary. It should be clear that an economic history book this is not. At best, Mr. Landes has told a few interesting anecdotes on the history of technology (navigations and clockworks are particularly well covered.) If there is a unifying principle to this book, it is that british (and american, by extension) cultural superiority were predestined to lead to greater economic growth and wealth. How these traits (individual freedoms, property rights, technological openness) developed, and to what extent they came in response, to changes in the economies and political systems, we are left to wonder. However, the low point of the book is Mr. Landes's omnipresent commentary. He never misses a chance to try to score points with like-minded conservatives. However, his arguments are weak, and his rhetoric is pompous. I can only describe it as Lilliputean, in its arrogance and idiocy. You could actually guess this by looking at the title of this book, which tries to borrow from Adam Smith's classic. E. Hobsbawm have commented that "... There are few historians who would not be proud to be the author of this book". I think Mr. Hobsbawm packed his commentary, which appears in the back cover of "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations", with rather more irony than the Editors who cited it could suspect.
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Summary: Accursed cultural geographers
Review: This is a blunt, nettlesome, and provocative book. Some may say it's narrow, biased, and simplistic. In the end I think it's simply incomplete. Mr Landes starts out with a discussion of the applicability of geography to the study of economic development, obviously with an eye towards explaining THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS. He says the subject "has fallen on hard times", illustrating this by listing the leading US universities that have abolished their geography departments. The reason? It "undoubtedly reflect[s] the intellectual weakness of the field; the lack of a theoretical basis, the all-embracing opportunism (more euphemistically, the catholic openess), the special 'easiness' of human geography. But behind those criticisms lay a dissatisfaction with some of the results. Geography has been tarred with a racist brush, an no one wanted to be contaminated." No one that is except Mr Landes. Being the iconoclast that he is, he writes with no care whatsoever for what tags critics wish to apply; he writes with a view to poking holes in traditional economic theory; he is dismissive of new economic historians, econometricians, dependency theorists, multiculturalists and ethnologists. If you wish to blame globalism, colonialism, imperialism or economic marginalization then you had better come prepared; if nothing else, this book offers a detailed analysis of the history of economic activity. As if in anticipation of the criticisms that will come due to the geographical bias and how this affects his book, Mr Landes has a rejoinder ready. Geography is criticized because it "tells an unpleasant truth, namely, that nature like life is unfair, unequal in its favors; further...natures unfairness is not easily remedied." The book is plausible in so far as it remains an economic geography study, even with its blunt thesis that the key to success is the Industial Revolution. "Some countries made an industrial revolution and became rich; and others did not and stayed poor." Surely this is not a contentious point, but it is only the starting point. We would expect Mr Landes to significantly develop on it, and even mention some of the varied results of industrial experiments. For instance, the experience of many South American countries with the import substitution model of industrial development has been nothing but disastrous. The concept involves importing components for local manufacture which are then substituted for home made goods; the idea is that the experience of making more sophisticated goods should improve capability and the potential for industrialization. That's the concept; the reality is that many economies that previously had a manufacturing base (albeit an inefficient one) now have almost zero manufacturing capability. Some will find Mr Landes' argument egregious when he moves from economic analysis to cultural geography and offers explanations for industrial failure. Religion, he says, has a role to play. Try to remember that the man is an iconoclast when you read here that Protestantism is good for industrialization wheras Roman Catholicism and Islam, with their emphasis on authority, are deleterious to the growth of initiative. As a geographer myself, I understand Mr Landes' impatience with shallow and baseless criticism of the subject, and there is no doubting that cultural factors do have a role to play. The book however opens itself up to ridicule with its almost Darwinian emphasis on these factors. The argument put forward by Mr Landes then ends up being a throwback to those cultural determinists whom he so easily swept aside in his opening chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: Why Some Scholars Are So Brilliant and Some So Poor
Review: Professor David Landes has managed to lose all academic prestige he might have deserved for other works. He purports to write an ambitious book trying to give an explanation on the inequality of nations, but very soon it is apparent that he is just going to write a history of economics -and, by all means, the worst one I have ever read. Landes gives a lot of anecdotes, and the book is an entertaining read, but from time to time, his remarks are absolutely outrageous: how can a University professor write that if he was an American Indian, he would prefer to be killed by the English rather than by the Spanish; or that the Arabs put the blame of everything on Israel, but even if Israel did not exist they would be fighting each other all the time. And how does it fit within an Economic History a deprecatory comment about Arab students in Boston? (and what about the support for that? An article in the Boston Globe). How can the author be so ignorant and say that we should not be surprised about Chinese ritual because in pre-Renaissance Spain everybody knelt before the bread and wine that are Christ's representation? (Anyone who has ever been to a Catholic Mass -anywhere- knows that is always done). So, these comments (that abound in the book) invalidate any thesis. Although there is no thesis. If you are interested in the influence of culture on economy, read Max Weber and all the scholarship for and against his analysis. By comparison, Landes is really shallow, to say the least. And Landes avoids the more fundamental question: why some countries are richer?
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Summary: Japanese are the best coloniser
Review: Yes,this is exactly what Landes opined in his book.I'm sure lots of comfort women from Taiwan,and Korea would beg to differ;not to mention the hundreds and thousands of Landes' fellow white European POWs who were supervised by these consiencious,hard working little yellow fellows whom Landes greatly admired.This one example goes to show the kind of absurd idea ,crazed notion put up by a senile white bigoted 'scholar'(from HARVARD to boot) in this so call historical survey. I am lucky because I only read a copy from library . I pity those of you who have to pay from your wallet to get one.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, even memorable, but probably misleading
Review: The object of this book is to survey and explain the fast or slow economic development of different parts of the world from about 1500 to the present. Landes mainly takes a regional perspective looking at Europe, Asia, Middle East, Latin America, and so on with some refinement to the national scale (e.g. China vs. Japan, Britain vs. Spain). Landes strongly advocates the point of view that cultural values (work ethic, thriftiness, attitudes toward change, technology, women) are primary determinants of economic success or failure. Although many, including myself, find this thesis lacking and controversial, there is still an abundance of interesting and useful information in this book. On the plus side, Landes offers a wealth of fascinating anecdotes, introductory information on the history of technology that was new to me, a clear and definite argument, and above all gives the reader some sense of the importance of culture in the economic realm. Although I personally feel that Landes overstates the importance of culture, the points he makes do have some validity and are generally under appreciated. Moreover, the author is remarkably fair minded for someone advocating a controversial thesis. Don't be fooled by the reviewers that make fun of the author for suggesting that eating with chopsticks has given Asians manual dexterity that is advantageous to their high-tech manufacturing sector. In fairness to the author, this statement is a single sentence in a 500 page book and he immediately admits that most of his colleagues smirk when they hear it. On the minus side, the author verges on severe cultural stereotypes a few too many times. The Asians are all thrifty and hard working while the Latins have been brain washed by the Catholic church. Landes more or less ignores several non-cultural challenges that poor countries face: unfair pressure from wealthy countries to open their markets, scarcity of capital & technology, a brain drain that leaves the best and brightest in the developed world. Finally, a remarkable failure is that Landes doesn't examine the idea that cultural values may be largely determined by the material & economic conditions of a country. The book's writing style is casual and conversational, but sometimes unclear and confusing. Many times I was not sure exactly what the author meant and wished he had written a complete sentence instead of a short and vague phrase. The bottom line is that the book is a worthy read. While not fully convincing, I found myself having a new appreciation for the importance of cultural values in the economic realm.
Rating:
Summary: A Combination of History & EconomicsThat is Enjoyable
Review: The problem some readers may have is that the author gives an unvarnished, no holes barred, tell it like it is, narrative. Many individuals, as well as nation states want to blame everyone but themselves for short comings. The author pulls no punches. He does gore a lot of sacred cows (not only in India) and that always stirs controversy. But that's what made this book so valuable. The only part I might disagree with is the implied generalization that some groups of immigrants to the United States do well because of their home land's culture. Those that come to this country are a sub-set, a non-representative group that is NOT a cross section of their home population. e.g., the British and other settlers to the New World. They are a select group of either entrepreneurs, risk takers, or else the desperate. They are the ones that either are looking to make a killing or else have nothing to lose and take risk and make it big or else fail trying and try again. It is worth the price of admission just for the bibliography and footnotes as well as his humor and cynicism. Again a great read!!!
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