Rating: 
Summary: GOOD COMPILATION OF OF ARTICLES ON THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE
Review: This book is a very good compilation of article on the role of culture in development. The compilation includes articles by a large number of premier authors on the subject, including the editors, Michael Porter, David Landes, Jeffrey Sachs, Francis Fukuyama, among others. The articles deal with many different topics, though the common theme is how culture affect the success of a certain aspect of society, such as health, education, institutions, justice, etc. It does focus on blaming certain cultures for lack of success, but rather it tries to understand the themes that allow certain cultures to outperform others. The lessons do not blame a culture, but rather suggests somewhat modest (and often drastic) change that is necessary to permit a well functioning capitalist economy to exist. As an economist, I found this book extremely useful in demonstrating the "transaction costs" that a culture may impose on a country, hence reducing its opporutnities for growth. In economics, this is usually studied in theory, but this book provides lively examples of how this is truly the case. However, I do believe that this book would be useful for practitioners in other disciplines.
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