In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Dr. Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, examines the reasons for large differences in income and
wealth between nations and among groups within nations. A wide range of
geographic, demographic, cultural, and political factors are examined, not to
find a single factor or a single combination of factors that will explain all
economic differences, but to show how particular combinations of factors limit
or expand the possibilities for specific nations and peoples at specific times
and places. Dr. Sowell also examines some popular explanations of these
differences and shows why they will not stand up under scrutiny. In doing so,