Books, Arts & Manners: For Richer or Poorer

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, by David S. Landes (Norton, 650 pp., $30)

HUMAN uniformity is the bedrock assumption of polite discourse today. Yet, when it comes to making money, humanity may now be further from equality of results than ever before. According to David S. Landes, professor emeritus of both economics and history at Harvard, just 250 years ago the average standard of living in the wealthiest nation on earth, Great Britain, was only about five times higher than in the poorest nation. Today, the ratio between, say, Switzerland and Mozambique is something like 400 to 1. What happened?

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, by David S. Landes (Norton, 650 pp., $30)

HUMAN uniformity is the bedrock assumption of polite discourse today. Yet, when it comes to making money, humanity may now be further from equality of results than ever before. According to David S. Landes, professor emeritus of both economics and history at Harvard, just 250 years ago the average standard of living in the wealthiest nation on earth, Great Britain, was only about five times higher than in the poorest nation. Today, the ratio between, say, Switzerland and Mozambique is something like 400 to 1. What happened?