Book Review: Why Nation Fail, the origin of power, prosperity, and poverty by Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson

• Preface Why Egyptians filled Tahrir Square to bring down Hosni Mubarak and what it means for our understanding of the causes of prosperity and poverty
• 1. So close and yet so different, Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, have the same people, culture, and geography. Why is one rich and one poor?
• The economics of the Rio Grande
• The founding of Buenos Aires
• From Cajamarca ...
• .... to Jamestown
• A tale of two constitutions
• Having an idea, starting a firm, and getting a loan
• Path-dependent change
• Making a billion or two
• Toward a theory of world inequality
• 2. Theories that don't work, poor countries are poor not because of their geographies or cultures, or because their leaders do not know which policies will enrich their citizens
• The lay of the land
• The geography hypothesis
• The culture hypothesis
• The ignorance hypothesis
• 
  
• 3. The making of prosperity and poverty, how prosperity and poverty are determined by the incentives created by institutions, and how politics determines what institutions a nation has
• The economics of the 38th parallel
• Extractive and inclusive economic institutions
• Engines of prosperity
• Extractive and inclusive political institutions
• Why not always choose prosperity?
• The long agony of the Congo
• Growth under extractive political institutions
• 4. Small differences and critical junctures: the weight of history, how institutions change through political conflict and how the past shapes the present
• The world the plague created
• The making of inclusive institutions
• Small difference that matter
• The contigent path of history
• Understanding lay of the land
• 5. "I've seen the future, and it works": Growth under extractive institutions, what Stalin, King Shyaam, the Neolithic Revolution, and the Maya city-states all had in common and how this explains why China's current economic growth cannot last
• I've seen the future
• On the banks of the Kasai
• The long summer
• The unstable extraction
• What goes wrong?
• 6.Difting apart, how institutions evolve over time, often slowly difting apart
• How Venice became a museum
• Roman virtues...
• ... Roman vices
• No one writes from Vindolanda
• Diverging paths
• Consequencess of early growth
• 7.The turning point, how a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions in England and led to the Industrial Revolution
• Trouble with stockings, William Lee's stocking knitting Tmachine
• The glorious revolution
• The industrial revolution
• Why in England
• 8. Not on our turf: barriers to development, why the politically powerful in many nations opposed the industrial revolution
• No printing allowed
• A small difference that mattered, Spain vs England
• Fear of industry, Habsburg empire
• No shipping allowed, Ming and Qing dynasties in China
• The absolutism of Prester John, Ehiopia
• The children of samaale, Somalia
• 9.Reversing developmen, how European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world
• Spice and genocide, Southeast Asia
• The all-to-usual institution, Slave trade and slavery 
• Making dual economy. South Africa
• Development reversed 
• 10 The diffusion of prosperity, how some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain
• Hornor among thieves, Australia
• Breaking the barriers: The French revolution
• Exporting the revolution, Europe
• Seeking modernity, Japan
• Roots of world inequality
• 11. The virtuous circle, how institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them
• The black act ,UK
• The slow march of democracy, UK
• Busting trusts, USA
• Packing the court, FDR in USA
• Positive feedback and virtuous circles
• 12. The vicious circle, How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure
• You can't take the train to Bo anymore Sierra Leone
• From Encomienda to land grab Guatemala
• From slavery to Jim Crow US South
• The iron law of Oligarchy Ethiopia
• Negative feeback and vicious circles
• 13. Why nations fail today, institutions, institutions, institutions
• How to win the lottery in Zimbabwe
• A children's crusade? Siere Leone and sub-Sahara Africa's child soldiers
• Who is the state? Colombia
• El Corralito, Argentina
• The new absolutism, North Korea
• King cotton, Uzbekistan
• Keeping the playing field at an angle, Egypt
• Why nations fail
• 14. Breaking the mold, how a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institution
• Three African Chiefs, Botswana
• The end of the southern extraction, US
• Rebirth in China, China under Deng 
• 15. Understanding prosperity and povery, how the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed
• Historical Origins
• The irresistible charm of authoritarian growth
• You can't engineer prosperity
• The failure of foreign aid
• Empowerment