micaela wrote:I read: why nations fail - The passion of western mind - Guns, germs and steel - The blank slate, and other things of authors like Howard Bloom, Richard Dawkings, Sam Morris - Hanna Arendt - Chomsky and also McKibben.
I guess I am mainstream like you Harry!
I am a big fan of Jared Diamond, who wrote "Guns, germs and steel," though my brother-in-law, a university professor of history, dislikes both popular presentations and geographical determinism.
Diamond's basic story is that some effects were so strong that European dominance over New World peoples, when the meeting came about, was almost foreordained. Horses, disease immunity and to some extent advanced technology in the form of weaponry, gave Cortez and Pizarro insurmountable advantages, and these things were outcomes of geographical forces.
In development economics, one of the big questions is cultural influence on economic development. This is a somewhat more subtle question, involving the nature of the constraints going forward. My reading, plus (limited) observation of developing countries, suggests that to a large extent there is a cultural constraint on how fast modern technological skill can be acquired, but that in general catching up is easier than inventing stuff for the first time.
Haven't read "Why Nations Fail" yet. Did you find it insightful?
