World Affairs & HistoryBook note
Why Nations Fail
Description. A short description of a book from my bookshelf, not a review.
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that nations prosper when their political and economic institutions are inclusive, spreading power and opportunity widely, and fail when institutions are extractive, serving a narrow elite. They illustrate this with examples from history and around the world.
The book has been hugely influential, and its authors shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024. It pairs naturally with Power and Progress, by Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, which is reviewed on this site.
From the bookshelf · read 2025