Why nations succeed, and keep on succeeding

August is the time when we pause to take stock of a hectic first half of the year, and wonder what lies ahead. Nestled in the hills of northern Laos, the ancient city of Luang Prabang sits around a bend in the Mekong, isolated for centuries and renowned today as a city of 15th-century Buddhist temples. It was a good place to be catching up on one's history to try to comprehend the uncertain future.

The recent bestseller by MIT economics professor Daron Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James Robinson, argues that national failures are all due to man-made factors; more specifically, it chronicles how political institutions become "extractive", rather than inclusive.

Acemoglu and Robinson stirred up debate on why Latin American economies never quite made it, even though they were resource-rich: despite huge wealth, a few hundred families or an elite controlled the key resources for their own benefit, thus remaining extractive.

The book touches a raw nerve because many in the West are unsure whether they will continue to be dominant.

The authors argue that China will sooner or later stop growing because its institutions are becoming extractive. But, as one review argued, Chinese institutions may well evolve into inclusive systems. After all, China could not have succeeded without being inclusive - taking millions out of poverty.

In the same genre, a book by Stanford professor of classics and history Ian Morris, , also makes a grand sweep, arguing not only about the factors of biology and sociology, but also about geography. So instead of Acemoglu and Robinson's dictum, "institutions, institutions and institutions", Morris says it's more about "location, location, location". He argues that biology and sociology explain the similarities in development between the East and West, but "it is geography that explains why the West rules".