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

“A tour de force…prepare to be amazed.”
–John C. Bogle, Founder and Former CEO, The Vanguard Group Why didn’t the Florentines invent the steam engines and flying machines that Da Vinci sketched? What kept the master metallurgists of ancient Rome from discovering electricity? The Birth of Plenty takes a fascinating new look at the key conditions that had to be in place before world economic growth–and the technological progress underlying it–could occur, why those pathways are still absent in many parts of today’s world, and what must be done before true, universal prosperity can become a reality. The Birth of Plenty doesn’t mean to suggest that nothing of note existed before 1820. What The Birth of Plenty suggests that, from the dawn of recorded history through 1820, the “mass of man” experienced essentially zero growth, either in economic standing or living standards. It was only in the third decade of the nineteenth century that the much of the world’s standard of living began to inexorably and irreversibly improve, and the modern world was born. But what changed, and why then? Noted financial expert and neurologist William Bernstein isolates the four conditions which, when occurring simultaneously, constitute an all-inclusive formula for human