Why Nations Fail

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY AND SOURCES
P
REFACE
Mohamed ElBaradei’s views can be found at
twitter.com/#!/ElBaradei
.
Mosaab El Shami and Noha Hamed quotes are from
Yahoo! news 2/6/2011, at 
news.yahoo.com/s/
yblog_exclusive/20110206/ts_yblog_exclusive/
egyptian-voices-from-tahrir-square
.
On the twelve immediate demands posted on Wael
Khalil’s 
blog, 
see
alethonews.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/egypt-reviewing-
the-demands/
.
Reda Metwaly is quoted on Al Jazeera, 2/1/2011, at
english.aljazeera.net/news/
middleeast/2011/02/2011212597913527.html
.

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C
HAPTER
 1 : So C
LOSE AND
 Y
ET
 S
O
 D
IFFERENT
A good discussion of the Spanish exploration of the Rio
de La Plata is Rock (1992), chap. 1. On the discovery and
colonization of the Guaraní, see Ganson (2003). The
quotations from de Sahagún are from de Sahagún (1975),
pp. 47–49. Gibson (1963) is fundamental on the Spanish
conquest of Mexico and the institutions they structured. The
quotations from de las Casas come from de las Casas
(1992), pp. 39, 117–18, and 107, respectively.
On Pizarro in Peru, see Hemming (1983). Chaps. 1–6
cover the meeting at Cajamarca and the march south and
the capture of the Inca capital, Cuzco. See Hemming
(1983), chap. 20, on de Toledo. Bakewell (1984) gives an
overview of the functioning of the Potosí 
mita
, and Dell
(2010) provides statistical evidence that shows how it has
had persistent effects over time.
The quote from Arthur Young is reproduced from
Sheridan (1973), p. 8. There are many good books that
describe the early history of Jamestown: for example, Price
(2003), and Kupperman (2007). Our treatment is heavily
influenced by Morgan (1975) and Galenson (1996). The
quote from Anas Todkill comes from p. 38 of Todkill (1885).
The quotes from John Smith are from Price (2003), p. 77
(“Victuals …”), p. 93 (“If your king …”), and p. 96 (“When
you send …”). The Charter of Maryland, the Fundamental
Constitutions of Carolina, and other colonial constitutions
have been put on the Internet by Yale University’s Avalon
Project, at 
avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century
.
Bakewell (2009), chap. 14, discusses the independence
of Mexico and the constitution. See Stevens (1991) and
Knight (2011) on postindependence political instability and
presidents. Coatsworth (1978) is the seminal paper on the
evidence on economic decline in Mexico after
independence. Haber (2010) presents the comparison of
the development of banking in Mexico and the United
States. Sokoloff (1988) and Sokoloff and Khan (1990)
provide evidence on the social background of innovators in
the United States who filed patents. See Israel (2000) for a
biography of Thomas Edison. Haber, Maurer, and Razo

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(2003) proposes an interpretation of the political economy
of the regime of Porfirio Díaz very much in the spirit of our
discussion. Haber, Klein, Maurer, and Middlebrook (2008)
extend this treatment of Mexico’s political economy into the
twentieth century. On the differential allocation of frontier
lands in North and Latin America, see Nugent and
Robinson (2010) and García-Jimeno and Robinson (2011).
Hu-DeHart (1984) discusses the deportation of the Yaqui
people in chap. 6. On the fortune of Carlos Slim and how it
was made, see Relea (2007) and Martinez (2002).
Our interpretation of comparative economic development
of the Americas builds on our own previous research with
Simon Johnson, particularly Acemoglu, Johnson, and
Robinson (2001, 2002), and has also been heavily
influenced by Coatsworth (1978, 2008) and Engerman and
Sokoloff (1997).

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