This is a very readable book containing vast numbers of historic antidotes which is why I give this book a score of two stars. However the main argument is simplistic and flawed. The authors postulate that nations are successful because they have inclusive institutions and fail when the institutions are extractive. It would be nice to believe in such a theory but the book left me wholly unconvinced. It is suggested that strong patent laws are indicative of inclusive governance which lead to innovation and national success. Yet such laws are highly extractive. The book does not discuss how enforcement of Watt’s steam engine patents stifled development and economic exploitation restricted their use. Nor does it discuss Arkwright’s attempt to monopolise textile manufacture through patents. These together could so easily have stopped the industrial revolution in its tracks or at least moved it in a different direction. The book states that technological development happens as a result of inclusive institutions which enable creative destruction. The examples given are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries whereas all the major twentieth century technology advances were actually the result of extractive policies driven by warfare and these are conveniently ignored. Also ignored by the authors are German economic performance under the Kaiser, the Weimar republic and Hitler. Like India in the second half of the last century these simply just don’t fit their argument. The judgemental language used can also be off putting. There are half a dozen pages that describe what a bad man Stalin was yet there is just a single sentence describing the collapse of one of the twentieth century’s most effective economies after Gorbachev. A bit more balance is needed in a number of places. The book’s theory is too simplistic and too black and white. One of the stated characteristics of inclusive governance is minimal control and regulation. Yet without command economies operated by all of the US, USSR and UK the defeat of Germany and Japan would have taken much longer if at all. Nations fail when they make bad decisions and frequently the bad decision is to be black or white rather than opting for that successful shade of grey.