David S. Landes
To understand the massive economic disparities dividing the globe today, look beyond geography and resources to the cultural values that shape human innovation and enterprise.
While geography helps set a region's developmental baseline by influencing agriculture and disease, culture and institutions shape whether a society can overcome those environmental constraints.
Europe's rise to global economic prominence was fueled by a decentralization of political power that fostered competition between states and helped protect private property from more absolute rule.
The routinization of discovery, where societies actively encouraged intellectual inquiry and rewarded practical experimentation, was a key catalyst for the Industrial Revolution.