Peoples And Countries

Each country profile contains 10 categories of information-- General information, Environment & geography, Customs & courtesies, Lifestyle, Cultural history, Culture, Society, Social development, Government, and Economy. Each volume also contains the same appendices: Appendix 1 describes the 21 types of governments found around the world, and Appendix 2 describes 10 of the world's major religions. -- Publisher description

Winner of the 2014 Duff Cooper Prize Winner of the 2015 Welsh Book of the Year Award Shortlisted for the 2015 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Ackerley prize Longlisted for the 2014 Thwaites Wainwright Prize Let me take you down the thin cobblestoned streets of the Belgian border town of Bouillon. Let me take you down the alleys that lead into its past. To a town peopled with eccentrics, full of charm, menace and wonder. To the days before television, to Marie Bodard's sweetshop, to the Nazi occupation and unexpected collaborators. To a place where one neighbour murders another over the misfortune of pigs and potatoes. To the hotel where the French poet Verlaine his lover Rimbaud, holed up whilst on the run from family, creditors and the law. This exquisite meditation on place, time and memory is an illicit peek into other people's countries, into the spaces they have populated with their memories, and might just make you revisit your own in a new and surprising way.

Each country profile contains 10 categories of information-- General information, Environment & geography, Customs & courtesies, Lifestyle, Cultural history, Culture, Society, Social development, Government, and Economy. Each volume also contains the same appendices: Appendix 1 describes the 21 types of governments found around the world, and Appendix 2 describes 10 of the world's major religions. -- Publisher description

By intelligence officials for intelligent people

Like the robber barons of the 19th century Gilded Age, a new and proliferating crop of billionaires is driving rapid development and industrialization in poor countries. The accelerated industrial growth spurs economic prosperity for some, but it also widens the gap between the super rich and the rest of the population, especially the very poor. In Rich People Poor Countries, Caroline Freund identifies and analyzes nearly 700 emerging-market billionaires whose net worth adds up to more than $2 trillion. Freund finds that these titans of industry are propelling poor countries out of their small-scale production and agricultural past and into a future of multinational industry and service-based mega firms. And more often than not, the new billionaires are using their newfound acumen to navigate the globalized economy, without necessarily relying on political connections, inheritance, or privileged access to resources. This story of emerging-market billionaires and the global businesses they create dramatically illuminates the process of industrialization in the modern world economy.

Discover the countries of the world - explore their geography, wildlife, traditions, and arts in this picture-included children's ebook. Every country profile includes photos, and each nation has a full-colour map detailing its main cities, landscape features, and borders, and exactly where in the world it is. At-a-glance panels provide a quick reference to all the stats, and the easy-to-read text is full of fascinating, fun facts. Countries, Cultures, People & Places shows the many unique things that make one country different from another, but might also reveal surprising similarities. Did you know that Cuba's national sport is baseball, one of the most popular sports in the USA? And that kids in both Japan and Chile have earthquake drills on their school schedule? Find out about anything from the spookily vibrant Day of the Dead parade in Mexico and the beautiful springtime cherry blossom displays of Japan, to blueberry-picking in Sweden and India's space programme. So pack your bags, decide your destination, and begin your journey!

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.