Book Review: The Birth Of Plenty by William J. Bernstein

The marriage of economics and neurology apparently gives you William Bernstein’s books. His third (and best?) book is an economic history of how we came to live in a world awash in material wealth.

A kind of proto Why Nations Fail (look for my review on that giant tome as well), Bernstein anticipated the now-popular idea of pinning success on institutional development. Focusing on things like capital markets and communications capability, Bernstein argues that those nations which adopted the four main drivers of growth flourished, while others fell by the wayside as their imperial energies finally exhausted themselves.

Not entirely convincing, there are still no obvious errors in Bernstein’s thesis. But it does seem to view human economic life as a kind of large thing, rather than many small things interacting — which should probably not be a surprise given the author’s neurology background.

Very critical of the Catholic Church, and light on non-European examples outside of China and Japan, the book shows some obvious biases in sampling.

That said, the book has aged well from its publication more than ten years ago, and still manages to be a fast and interesting read. Not a particularly wonderful reference book, but a great choice for material to read on the airplane or on a rainy weekend.

The Birth Of Plenty can be found on Amazon and other major booksellers.

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