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Dedication
Mark: For Desiree.
Jared: To my father, Thom, and the memory of my mother, Linda.
How the World Became Rich
The Historical Origins of Economic Growth
Mark Koyama
Jared Rubin
polity
Copyright © Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin 2022
The right of Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2022 by Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4024-2
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944393
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Preface
The world is rich, although it may not always seem like it. Poverty is still all too prevalent. Approximately one billion people around the world barely have enough to survive. The fate of millions of people living in poverty and violence in places like Venezuela, Syria, Burundi, or the Democratic Republic of Congo is deplorable. Even in the developed world, poverty is far, far too common.
Yet, by historical standards, the world is very rich. Most people are much better off than their ancestors were. In fact, most people living right now are better off than almost every person who ever lived prior to two centuries ago (save a very small fraction of elites who lived in luxury … or what was considered luxury at the time). As the world has become richer in the 20th and 21st centuries, more and more people have been lifted out of poverty. And there is good reason to hope that, within our lifetimes, a significant fraction of the remaining poverty around the world will be eliminated.
How did the world become rich? This is the question this book attempts to answer. It is by no means easy to do so. In fact, there is almost certainly
