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The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality Paperback – May 26, 2015

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4.1 out of 5 stars 69 customer reviews
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  • The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 376 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (May 26, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691165629
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691165622
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsEssentially a survey course
By MT57 on October 28, 2013
Format: Hardcover
I was underwhelmed. Professor Deaton is highly regarded in his field of development economics, and there is one chapter, the penultimate, that focuses on that sector and it was hard-hitting, pithy, and insightful. Professor Deaton is a proponent of the theme that external aid does not make much difference in the least developed countries, due in large measure to corruption within the recipient nation. He lays out his case forcefully. For those who have encountered the philosophical, non-empirical argument of Peter Singer in favor of such aid, this chapter is a very effective rejoinder.

But otherwise, the book is basically a survey course -- at a 50,000 foot, totally macro level -- of the developments, mostly positive, in material wellbeing and health over the last couple of centuries -- the "Great Escape " of the title -- with some very high-level consideration of the reasons why they have not been uniform and the implications of the lack of uniformity. Pretty much everything is studied at the level of comparing statistics collected at the national level, which I find to be maddeningly frustrating as there are so many differences one can find between any pair of nations. And then one gets to the chapter on cross-border aid, and the author completely switches his vantage point and says that you can't limit your scrutiny of cross-border aid to the nation-to-nation level, you have to look at what is going on inside the recipient nation. I agree, but by the same token doesn't that perspective conflict undermine the nation-to nation comparisons that make up the prior chapters?Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA once-in-a-decade book about economic and social development
By Guy P. Pfeffermann on October 16, 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is an important book by one of the foremost development economists in the world. It is highly readable, indeed written in an entertaining manner. Deaton paints on a vast canvas in time and space, embracing both developed and developing worlds. His theme is how in the course of history, and especially during the past three decades, hundreds of millions of people managed to escape abject poverty. He brings new insights into the sequencing and the many interwoven and often counter-intuitive linkages between growth and quality of life, especially health and longevity. His story begins when we were all hunters/gatherers and ends in 2013 in the unresolved aftermath of the financial crisis.

One of Deaton's main themes is that economic growth does not necessarily produce improved quality of life, especially when income is distributed very unequally - as is the case in today's United States. So for example, in spite of lower economic growth in France than in the United States, because of a less unequal distribution of income, "all but the top 1 percent of the French population did better than all but the top 1 percent of the American population". (p. 260)

In discussing the relationships between rich and poor countries, I very much like Deaton's implicit framework, which distinguishes "us" (the people of the North), "we" (the Northern governments), aid recipients ("their governments"), and "they" (the people of the South). This helps to cut through a lot of semantic and conceptual confusion, especially when discussing "development assistance".

The book concludes with a chapter about how to help those left behind the "Great Escape" from poverty.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsInequality, Infant Mortality, and Foreign Aid
By Mal Warwick on December 17, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Has the human race made progress since the days when all our lives were nasty, brutish, and short?

Some might think this question patently silly, since it would appear to answer itself. But Angus Deaton finds in it a point of entry into his inquiry on “health, wealth, and the origins of inequality,” the subtitle of his ambitious new book. He is in no doubt that humanity has progressed, not steadily but by fits and starts — and continues to do so to this day. “Today,” he writes, “children in sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to survive to age 5 than were English children born in 1918 . . . [and] India today has higher life expectancy than Scotland in 1945.”

In The Great Escape, Deaton, a veteran professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton, explores inequality — between classes and between countries — with a detailed statistical analysis of trends in infant mortality, life expectancy, and income levels over the past 250 years. He concludes that the large-scale inequality that plagues policymakers and reformers alike in the present day is the result of the progress humanity has made since The Great Divergence (between “the West and the rest”) since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. “Economic growth,” Deaton asserts, “has been the engine of international income inequality.”

No argument there: Deaton is far from alone in this belief. Other scholars have written extensively about this topic in recent years. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, by Gregory Clark, is just one example.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsNobel prize explained

Behavioral economics is gradually developing as a key discipline in understanding our economy. It is clear why he won the Nobel for his work, including this book. Read more

Published 4 days ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsVery thoughtful and with clear arguments

This book provides some arguments for the reasons of inequality both in the areas of economics and health care. Read more

Published 23 days ago by Marcos Szydlo
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Came in perfect condition!

Published 1 month ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent economic history but I agree that the aid section feels out...

Insightful book about the global rise of living standards during the industrial era. Charts a path between the political left and right on where the data supports inferences on... Read more

Published 1 month ago by James Greenleaf
3.0 out of 5 starsI hoped it would be more reader friendly to the ...

I hoped it would be more reader friendly to the lay person, but is more academic (which is not unexpected).

Published 1 month ago by RuffyOak
4.0 out of 5 starsWhy the escape from poverty will continue

Good book. It explains how it is important to differentiate between unequality and poverty. Extremelly well documented, I enjoyed reading it.

Published 1 month ago by Philippides
1.0 out of 5 starsA Mistake?

I didn't buy this book.

Published 1 month ago by Susan Beck
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Many good ideas for public policies

Published 2 months ago by Alicia Girón
4.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent piece of work trying to understand how some societies ...

An excellent piece of work trying to understand how some societies "escaped" from poverty, disease, and ignoance, how some did not, and how these should go about... Read more

Published 2 months ago by M. del Buono
5.0 out of 5 starsyet excellent.

Sobering, yet excellent.

Published 2 months ago by Leo Bodden

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