Why are some nations more prosperous than others? This book sets out to answer this question, with a compelling and elegantly argued new theory: that it is not down to climate, geography or culture, but because of institutions. It explains why the world is divided into nations with wildly differing levels of prosperity

• 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?
• 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 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
• Small differences and critical junctures: the weight of history: How institutions change through political conflict and how the past shapes the present
• "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
• Drifting apart: How institutions evolve over time, often slowly drifting apart
• The turning point: How a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions in England and led to the Industrial Revolution

• Not on our turf: barriers to development: Why the politically powerful in many nations opposed the Industrial Revolution
• Reversing development: How European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world
• The diffusion of prosperity: How some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain
• The virtuous circle: How institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them
• The vicious circle: How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure
• Why nations fail today: Institutions, institutions, institutions
• Breaking the mold: How a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institutions
• Understanding prosperity and poverty: How the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed