The Birth of Plenty : How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IT'S ALL TOO TEMPTING TO LAMENT the state of the world, particularly when you focus on the melodramas of mankind-violent conflicts, large-scale malfeasance and failure,..." (more)
Key Phrases: modern prosperity, economic takeoff, New York, New World, Latin America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rather than dry academic analysis, Bernstein, in his second book (after Four Pillars of Investing), has created a vital, living text-a cogent, timely journey through the economic history of the modern world. He identifies institutions ("the framework within which human beings think, interact and carry on business") as the engines of prosperity. Boiled down to four (property rights, the scientific method, capital markets and communications), these institutions come from ideas and practices that bubbled forth over the course of hundreds of years. Bernstein is clear in explaining that the civilizations that develop and implement these systems thrive, and that those that do not, perish. The Spanish empire, for example, had most of these but lacked effective capital markets. When the gold from the New World dried up, the empire essentially went broke. By 1840 the British had all of these institutions in place, economic growth exploded and the lot of the common man was immensely improved. Today, the U.S. faces the challenge of sustaining prosperity in the face of rapid technological change. Though fairly Eurocentric in focus, Bernstein's narrative tracks the development of these essential ingredients to prosperity over a global landscape-the great dynasties of China get plenty of attention here, as do the Japanese. Solid writing and poignant assessments of the economic players throughout time give texture and flavor to Bernstein's argument: he describes the medieval relationship between the various European kingdoms and the Vatican as "a holy shakedown racket." Packed with information and ideas, Bernstein's book is an authoritative economic history, accessible and thoroughly entertaining.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With the advent of computers, we tend to think that technology is changing at a more rapid pace than ever. Bernstein, a noted financial expert, reminds us that the invention of the locomotive and the telegraph prior to 1850 had a much greater impact on the lives and well-being of the people of that era. According to his analysis, there was little change in the world's standard of living from the dawn of recorded history all the way to 1820, with technological progress moving in reverse as often as forward. In a very solid review of economic history, Bernstein examines the four factors that fell into place to create a formula for human progress: property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and transportation and communication. From the rise of common law to the invention of the steam engine, from the creation of currencies to shipbuilding, this is an in-depth history of the rise of prosperity. It is topical, as well, examining the impact of economic progress on "happiness," trends in income inequality, and the opposing views of the Christian and Muslim mindsets. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071421920
• ISBN-13: 978-0071421928
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 162 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Explaining everything, or at least trying to, September 1, 2004

By	Richard Hershberger (Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There really is quite a bit good about this book. For one thing, it is very readable. Economic history is not usually regarded as a subject for a real page-turner, but Bernstein manages to come close. For another thing, his economics is solid. He is, as one would expect of a working investment advisor, a free market economist, but he isn't an ideologue. He recognizes that there is more to life than the free market. So he can point out, p. 270, that under Meiji Japan the landlord-tenant system was economically efficient yet a social disaster. And he writes, p. 339, that "History teaches that significant wealth inequality is not as benign as a moderately uncomfortable tax burden is." One of those three stars is for that sentence alone.

So why only three stars? Because economic history needs both good economics and good history: Bernstein's history is very bad indeed.

The first thing that jumps out is how Bernstein relies on popular histories. When he discusses the Middle Ages, for example, he repeatedly cites Barbara Tuchman's _A Distant Mirror_. That is a very good popular history of 14th century northern France. She used scholarly sources, which in turn used original period sources. But this is another way of saying that what we get from Bernstein is three steps removed from concrete facts to ever vaguer generalization, rather like repeatedly photocopying a document. Statements about one place and time get turned into statements about Europe in the Middle Ages. When you deal in vague generalizations you can make the history fit any desired mold. Anyone claiming to have a brilliant historical insight should at least read actual historians.

On a more concrete level, there are countless howlers: We have the Catholic Inquisition in Edinburgh over a century after the Scottish Reformation. We have a credulous retelling of the story of Galileo dropping weights off the leaning tower of Pisa. We are told that the "conventional military wisdom" is that an American defeat at the Battle of Midway might have forced the U.S. to sue for peace. Who holds this conventional wisdom? Not any military historian who doesn't want to get laughed out of the room. One is left with the feeling that he learned this from watching bad documentaries on the History Channel. And so on, and so on, and so on. The book is full of these.

Playing a game of 'gotcha!' is beside the point if the book holds together despite the occasional error. Unfortunately, it does not. The thesis breathlessly reported in the promotional material is that the economic revolution of England circa 1820 was the result of four factors coming together: property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and modern transportation and communication. This actually is only the subject of less than half the book. Much of the rest is devoted to the proposition that these same four factors are necessary and sufficient for other nations to reproduce the revolutionary growth. It really isn't obvious or clear that the basic factors needed to invent a phenomenon are the same as those needed to duplicate it. The assumption, apparently unexamined, results in an unhappy combination, with yet more tucking and folding and stretching needed.

Consider the fourth factor, modern transportation and communications. In 1820 this meant railroads and telegraphs. Bernstein correctly shows how their invention resulted from modern science and their exploitation was made possible through property rights and capitalization. In other words, railroads and telegraphs resulted from the other three factors. But this means that transportation and communications aren't a fundamental factor at all, but derive from other, more basic factors: combine the three fundamental factors, stir, let the pot simmer for a couple of centuries, and you have your fourth factor. It doesn't make sense to treat it as fundamental when considering 1820 England. On the other hand, other nations have no need to re-invent the railroad. So if you look at how other nations can reproduce the effect, it makes sense to treat transportation and communications as a basic necessity.

That's a pretty abstract complaint. Even it does involve a bit of folding and tucking, who cares so long as the model works? But it doesn't. Bernstein completely fails to explain how Germany underwent similar growth in the 1890s. On page 157 he notes the tiny German capital market in 1873, and on page 370 he mentions that 1870 to 1913 Germany had the second-fastest growth in the world. How can this be? This is not merely nitpicking. If Germany lacked any of the purportedly necessary factors, yet achieved rapid growth without them, the thesis is disproved. I honestly don't know if Bernstein didn't notice the problem, ducked the issue, or has an explanation but left it out to keep his page count down.

The whole thing smacks of a pet idea which attempts to neatly tie everything together, but fails. Were this the first draft of a doctoral thesis it would, one trusts, be followed by extensive revision. But in the hands of an established writer it gets published, and he being a capable writer, he writes convincingly.

So why do I give it as many as three stars? For the reasons I gave in my first paragraph, I think this is a suitable book for some readers. Someone who wants a painless introduction to both history and economics will come out knowing more than when he went in, and reading this book might lead to reading better books. But for my money I think that even after fifteen years Paul Kennedy's _The Rise and the Decline of the Great Powers_ holds up well and covers a lot of the same ground better.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much info, so easy to read, a rare combination!, July 14, 2004

By	Gaetan Lion - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

William Bernstein is an excellent economics and business writer. Bernstein has the ability to teach and write about technical concepts in the most accessible way. "The Birth of Plenty" is no exception. This book covers such a breadth of subjects regarding economics, political science, history from the antiquity to nowadays.

His theory is not unique. The countries who prosper are the ones who give their citizen the right to own their property, to communicate freely with each other, to practice the scientific method to replace outdated traditional knowledge, and to take business risk with other people's money. In summary, the countries who prosper are the ones who allow individuals to reap the fruits of their risk-taking efforts. These are not new and original ideas.

After all, there is a long list of economics writers who pretty much said the same thing starting with Adam Smith back in 1776 in the "Wealth of Nations." More recently, Hernando de Soto wrote about the exact same subject in "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else." Also, David Landes' book "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor" adopts the exact same theory as Bernstein's. My list could go on an on. This is because it is a subject that fascinates and never gets exhausted.

Even though all the above books are excellent and some are true classics in comparative international economics, Bernstein's book shines because it is so much more readable, accessible, and entertaining to read. While the others come across as dull economics professors, Bernstein comes across as an incredibly lively journalist. He turns his treaty on economics history into a real page turner giving David Browne's "Da Vinci Code" a run for his money [in the page turning department]. Thus, by reading this book you will learn just as much if not more than the other books I have mentioned, and you will have so much more fun.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Say What?, April 5, 2004

By	"acschwartz265" (Philadelphia PA) - See all my reviews

The previous reviewer and I seem not to have read the same book. Nowhere does Bernstein state that all four factors had their origins around 1820-his history of property rights, which dates back to prehistoric times, is very simply the best that I have read anywhere. Nor do I know of any economic authority who doubts that the improvements in property rights in Northern Europe were a major cause of its prosperity, not the other way around. The reviewer, who touts his historical expertise, also seems unaware that Da Gama's most celebrated voyage of discovery took place during the fifteenth century, not the sixteenth.

Both the general reader, as well as historians and economists, will find Bernstein's four-factor paradigm invaluable in understanding how the world arrived in its present state. His prose is lively, and given the weight of the subject, goes down like fine claret. You don't even have to take my word for it-according to the April 5 edition of Publishers Weekly, "Packed with information and ideas, Bernstein's book is an authoritative economic history, accessible and thoroughly entertaining."