Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

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HAPTER
 5 : “I’
VE
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EEN THE
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UTURE, AND
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T
 W
ORKS
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On Steffens’s mission to Russia and his words to Baruch, see
Steffens (1931), chap. 18, pp. 790–802. For the number of people
who starved in the 1930s, we use the figures of Davies and
Wheatcroft (2004). On the 1937 census numbers, see Wheatcroft and
Davies (1994a, 1994b). The nature of innovation in the Soviet
economy is studied in Berliner (1976). Our discussion of how
Stalinism, and particularly economic planning, really worked is based
on Gregory and Harrison (2005). On how writers of U.S. economics
textbooks continually got Soviet economic growth wrong, see Levy
and Peart (2009).
Our treatment and interpretation of the Lele and the Bushong is
based on the research of Douglas (1962, 1963) and Vansina (1978).
On the concept of the Long Summer, see Fagan (2003). An
accessible introduction to the Natufians and archaeological sites we
mention can be found in Mithen (2006) and Barker (2006). The
seminal work on Abu Hureyra is Moore, Hillman, and Legge (2000),
which documents how sedentary life and institutional innovation
appeared prior to farming. See Smith (1998) for a general overview of
the evidence that sedentary life preceded farming, and see Bar-Yosef
and Belfer-Cohen (1992) for the case of the Natufians. Our approach
to the Neolithic Revolution is inspired by Sahlins (1972), which also
has the anecdote about the Yir Yoront.
Our discussion of Maya history follows Martin and Grube (2000)
and Webster (2002). The reconstruction of the population history of
Copán comes from Webster, Freter, and Gonlin (2000). The number
of dated monuments is from Sidrys and Berger (1979).

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