Why Nations Fail

C
HAPTER
 15 : U
NDERSTANDING
 P
ROSPERITY AND
 P
OVERTY
For the story of Dai Guofang, see McGregor (2010), pp.
219–26. The story of red telephones is also from
McGregor, chap. 1. On the control of the party over media,
see Pan (2008), chap. 9, and McGregor (2010), pp. 64–69
and 235–62. The quotes on the party’s attitudes toward
entrepreneurs are from McGregor (2010), pp. 200–201
and 223. For Wen Jiabao’s comments on political reforms
in China, see 
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/wen-
jiabao-china-reform
.
The modernization hypothesis is clearly articulated in
Lipset (1959). The evidence against it is discussed in
detail in Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson, and Yared (2008,
2009). 
George 
H. 
W. 
Bush’s 
quote 
is 
from
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/752224.stm
.
Our discussion of NGO activity and foreign aid in
Afghanistan after December 2001 draws on Ghani and
Lockhart (2008). See also Reinikka and Svensson (2004)
and Easterly (2006) on problems of foreign aid.
Our discussion of problems of macroeconomic reform
and inflation in Zimbabwe is from Acemoglu, Johnson,
Robinson, and Querubín (2008). The Seva Mandir
discussion is drawn from Banerjee, Duflo, and Glennerster
(2008).
The formation of the Workers’ Party in Brazil is covered
in Keck (1992); on the Scânia strike, see chap. 4. The
quote from Cardoso is from Keck, pp. 44–45; the quote
from Lula is on Keck, p. 65.
The discussion of the efforts of Fujimori and Montesinos
to control the media is from McMillan and Zoido (2004),
and the quote on the Chinese Communist Party’s control is
from McGregor (2010), p. 69.
S
OURCES FOR THE
 M
APS
Map 1
: The Inca Empire and road system are adapted
from John V. Murra (1984), “Andean Societies before
1532,” in Leslie Bethell, ed., 
The Cambridge History of
Latin America
, vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge University

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Press). The map of the 
mita
catchment area is taken from
Melissa Dell (2010), “The Persistent Effects of Peru’s
Mining 
Mita
,” 
Econometrica
78:6, 1863–1903.
Map 2
: Drawn using data from Miriam Bruhn and
Francisco Gallego (2010), “The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly: Do They Matter for Economic Development?”
forthcoming in the 
Review of Economics and Statistics
.
Map 3
: Drawn using data from World Development
Indicators (2008), the World Bank.
Map 4
: Map of wild pigs adapted from W. L. R. Oliver; I.
L. Brisbin, Jr.; and S. Takahashi (1993), “The Eurasian
Wild Pig (Sus 
scrofa
),” in W. L. R. Oliver, ed., 
Pigs,
Peccaries, and Hippos: Status Survey and Action Plan
(Gland, Switzerland: IUCN), pp. 112–21. Wild cattle
adapted from map of aurochs from Cis van Vuure (2005),
Retracing the Aurochs
(Sofia: Pensoft Publishers), p. 41.
Map 5
: Adapted from Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf
(2001), 
The Domestication of Plants in the Old World
, 3rd
edition (New York: Oxford University Press), wheat map 4,
p. 56; barley map 5, p. 55. Map of rice distribution adapted
from Te-Tzu Chang (1976), “The Origin, Evolution,
Cultivation, Dissemination, and Diversification of Asian and
African Rices,” 
Euphytica
25, 425–41, figure 2, p. 433.
Map 6
: The Kuba Kingdom is based on Jan Vansina
(1978), 
The Children of Woot
(Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press), map 2, p. 8. Kongo based on Jan
Vansina (1995), “Equatorial Africa Before the Nineteenth
Century,” in Philip Curtin, Steven Feierman, Leonard
Thompson, and Jan Vansina, 
African History: From
Earliest Times to Independence
(New York: Longman),
map 8.4, p. 228.
Map 7
: Drawn using data from the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan
System (DMSP-OLS), which reports images of the Earth at
night captured from 20:00 to 21:30 local time from an
altitude 
of 
830 
km
(
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/sensors/ols.html
).
Map 8
: Constructed from data in Jerome Blum (1998),
The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe
(Princeton:
Princeton University Press).
Map 9
: Adapted from the maps in Colin Martin and

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Geoffrey Parker (1988), 
The Spanish Armada
(London:
Hamilton), pp. i–ii, 243.
Map 10
: Adapted from Simon Martin and Nikolai Gribe
(2000), 
Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens:
Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya
(London:
Thames and Hudson), p. 21.
Map 11
: Map adapted from Mark A. Kishlansky, Patrick
Geary, and Patricia O’Brien (1991), 
Civilization in the
West
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers), p. 151.
Map 12
: Somali clan families adapted from Ioan M.
Lewis (2002), 
A Modern History of Somalia
(Oxford:
James Currey), map of “Somali ethnic and clan-family
distribution 2002”; map of Aksum adapted from Kevin
Shillington (1995), 
History of Africa
, 2nd edition (New York:
St. Martin’s Press), map 5.4, p. 69.
Map 13
: J. R. Walton (1998), “Changing Patterns of
Trade and Interaction Since 1500,” in R. A. Butlin and R. A.
Dodgshon, eds., 
An Historical Geography of Europe
(Oxford: Oxford University Press), figure 15.2, p. 326.
Map 14
: Adapted from Anthony Reid (1988), 
Southeast
Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680: Volume 1,
The Land Below the Winds
(New Haven: Yale University
Press), map 2, p. 9.
Map 15
: Drawn from data taken from Nathan Nunn
(2008), “The Long Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics
123, no. 1, 139–76.
Map 16
: Maps based on the following maps: for South
Africa, A. J. Christopher (2001), 
The Atlas of Changing
South Africa
(London: Routledge), figure 1.19, p. 31; for
Zimbabwe, Robin Palmer (1977), 
Land and Racial
Domination in Rhodesia
(Berkeley: University of California
Press), map 5, p. 245.
Map 17
: Adapted from Alexander Grab (2003),
Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe
(London:
Palgrave Macmillan), map 1, p. 17; map 2, p. 91.
Map 18
: Drawn using data from the 1840 U.S. Census,
downloadable at the National Historical Geographic
Information System: 
http://www.nhgis.org/
.
Map 19
: Drawn using data from the 1880 U.S. Census,
downloadable at the National Historical Geographic
Information System: 
http://www.nhgis.org/
.

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Map 20
: Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, and
Rafael J. Santos (2010), “The Monopoly of Violence:
Evidence 
from 
Colombia,” 
at
http://scholar.harvard.edu/jrobinson/files/
jr_formationofstate.pdf
.

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