Development & Growth, Economic Conditions, Economic History, Theory, Economics, Europe 

"David S. Landes tells the long, fascinating story of wealth and power throughout the world: the creation of wealth, the paths of winners and losers, the rise and fall of nations. He studies history as a process, attempting to understand how the world's cultures lead to - or retard - economic and military success and material achievement." "Countries of the West, Landes asserts, prospered early through the interplay of a vital, open society focused on work and knowledge, which led to increased productivity, the creation of new technologies, and the pursuit of change. Europe's key advantage lay in invention and know-how, as applied in war, transportation, generation of power, and skill in metalwork. Even such now banal inventions as eyeglasses and the clock were, in their day, powerful levers that tipped the balance of world economic power. Today's new economic winners are following much the same roads to power, while the laggards have somehow failed to duplicate this crucial formula for success." "The key to relieving much of the world's poverty lies in understanding the lessons history has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this towering work of history."--Jacket. 

Nature's Inequalities -- Answers to Geography: Europe and China -- European Exceptionalism: A Different Path -- The Invention of Invention -- The Great Opening -- Eastward Ho! -- From Discoveries to Empire -- Bittersweet Isles -- Empire in the East -- For Love of Gain -- Golconda -- Winners and Losers: The Balance Sheet of Empire -- The Nature of Industrial Revolution -- Why Europe? Why Then? -- Britain and the Others -- Pursuit of Albion -- You Need Money to Make Money -- The Wealth of Knowledge -- Frontiers -- The South American Way -- Celestial Empire: Stasis and Retreat -- Japan: And the Last Shall Be First -- The Meiji Restoration -- History Gone Wrong? -- Empire and After -- Loss of Leadership -- Winners and -- Losers -- How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going? 

Includes bibliographical references (pages 567-635) and index.