The Narrow Corridor - How Nations Struggle for Liberty

FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS<BR><BR>One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2019<BR>One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2019<BR>Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize<BR><BR>'This book is more original and exciting than its predecessor...the highly influential Why Nations Fail' Martin Wolf, Financial Times<BR><BR>By the authors of the international bestseller Why Nations Fail, based on decades of research, this powerful new big-picture framework explains how some countries develop towards and provide liberty while others fall to despotism, anarchy or asphyxiating norms - and explains how liberty can thrive despite new threats.<BR><BR>Liberty is hardly the 'natural' order of things; usually states have been either too weak to protect individuals or too strong for people to protect themselves from despotism. There is also a happy Western myth that where liberty exists, it's a steady state, arrived at by 'enlightenment'. But liberty emerges only when a delicate and incessant balance is struck between state and society - between elites and citizens. This struggle becomes self-reinforcing, inducing both state and society to develop a richer array of capacities, thus affecting the peacefulness of societies, the success of economies and how people experience their daily lives.<BR><BR>Explaining this new framework through compelling stories from around the world, in history and from today - and through a single diagram on which the development of any state can be plotted - this masterpiece helps us understand the past and present, and analyse the future.<BR><BR>'As enjoyable as it is thought-provoking' Jared Diamond