국가의 성패를 결정적인 요인, '제도'의 힘!
번영과 빈곤의 기원부터 시작하여 그의 이해까지 도달한다!

가난, 부정부패, 문맹, 범죄 등으로 신음하고 있는 '실패한 국가'들. 왜 이들은 실패한 것일까? 저자들은 총 15년간의 연구를 바탕으로 시공간과 정치, 경제, 역사 등 분야를 가리지 않으며 폭넓은 예를 들어 그 이유를 설명한다. 로마제국, 마야 도시국가, 중세 베네치아, 구소련, 라틴아메리카, 잉글랜드, 유럽, 미국, 아프리카 등 전 세계 역사에서 주목할 만한 증거를 토대로 실패한 국가와 성공한 국가를 가르는 결정적 차이가 무엇인지 밝혀낸다. 저자들은 국가의 성패를 가르는 결정적 요인은 지리적, 역사적, 인종적 조건이 아니라 ‘제도’라는 답안에 도달한다. 대표적인 예가 바로 우리, 남한과 북한이다. '가깝지만 너무 다른 두 나라'가 어떻게 이런 차이를 보이고 있는지 저자들의 강력한 논리와 명쾌한 전개력으로 설명해내고 있다.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions?with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

- China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?
- Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
- What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More
philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at?and understand?the world.