How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor [Paperback]

Reinhert presents a revisionist account of economic ideas based on free
trade. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

It lands powerful punches and leaves the thoughtful free-marketeer
wondering indeed whether we've forgotten so much economic history that what
we think we know today ain't actually so. Moses Abramovitz would be proud
of his protege. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Reinert asks the most fundamental questions about economic
development, and proceeds to answer them with clear logic, a sweeping grasp
of history and an immensely readable style.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

`Reinert asks the most fundamental questions about economic
development, and proceeds to answer them with clear logic, a sweeping grasp
of history and an immensely readable style --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

How Rich Countries Got Rich buries the economic orthodoxy once and for all and shows why freetrade is not he best answer for our hopes of worldwide prosperity.

Unlike much of the writing produced by opponents of globalization,
these are serious books by serious people. They deserve to be read.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

How Rich Countries Got Rich is a narrative history of modern economic development from the Italian Renaissance to the present day. In it Erik S. Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investment. Reinert suggests that this set of policies in various combinations has driven successful development from Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East. Yet despite its demonstrable success, orthodox development economists have largely ignored this approach and insisted instead on the importance of free trade. Reinert presents a strongly revisionist history of economics and shows how the discipline has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand and the free market theories of English and later American economics on the other. He argues that our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism and could only later afford the luxury of free trade. When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence.

Erik S. Reinert, author of Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (2004), is Professor of Technology, Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and President of The Other Canon Foundation, Norway. He is one of the world's leading heterodox development economists and is based in Norway.