In this book, Jonathan Krieckhaus addresses the simple yet fundamental question: why have some countries on the global ‘periphery’ achieved substantial and sustained economic growth since 1960 while others have not? His answer, in a nutshell, is that different growth trajectories were largely determined by ‘initial conditions’ (principally human capital formation), which were heavily structured by prior experiences under European ‘colonialism’. For Krieckhaus, ‘colonialism’ refers either to settler colonization in the Americas and Australasia or the bureaucratic rule imposed on the Afro-Asian periphery after 1885 (an over-schematic characterization, which ignores the British Indian Empire, the most populous, and one of the most stable, colonial polities of all time). Settler colonialism embedded ‘Lockean’ property rights, which were conducive to economic growth, as well as ensuring high levels of literacy, but ‘late colonialism’ was, he argues, ‘extractive’. It inhibited improvements in the colonised peoples’ health and literacy and denied them skills, which come from ‘learning-by-doing’. According to Krieckhaus: ‘The new imperialism held Africa [and presumably other territories colonized after 1885] in stagnation’ (p. 34).

Rather awkwardly elided to this historical argument is the claim that ‘international events are a fundamental determinant of domestic economic growth in the global periphery’ (p. 18). Outside the neo-liberal lunatic fringe, this is surely uncontentious. Small, poor countries that depend on a narrow range of primary exports are notoriously vulnerable to fluctuations in world market prices. However, what struck me as inept was, firstly, Kriekhaus's failure to discriminate between peripheral economies, which vary greatly in their size, diversity, and vulnerability to ‘international events’; and, secondly, bundling the putative long-term consequences of colonialism with the short-term shocks emanating from the international system into a generalized critique of contemporary development theory.

Krieckhaus's method is fiercely statistical. The core of the study is a multivariate analysis of the causes of economic growth in ninety-one countries between 1960 and 2000. He concludes that two-thirds of all cross-national variation in growth can be explained by a very simple model, which specifies per capita GDP, life expectancy, and primary school enrolment in 1960, together with climate and property rights. In other words, an observer knowing these data in 1960 could have predicted, reasonably accurately, which countries would have grown most rapidly over the ensuing forty years. The global statistical analysis is followed by case studies of Mozambique, South Korea, and Brazil, which serve to reinforce the thesis that growth was principally driven by the weight of history (which determined ‘initial conditions’) and external forces.

The text is admirably clear and the limitations of regression analysis frankly acknowledged. This is an interesting contribution to explaining the unequal patterning of global development. However, I have to say my confidence in the study was undermined by some conspicuous errors of fact. Kriekhaus tells us in several places that rising petroleum prices and interest rates threw most of the developing world into prolonged stagnation during the 1980s (pp. 3, 9) but this is wrong on two counts: after peaking in 1981, oil prices plummeted in the 1980s (as a glance at http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/G1869.gif (consulted 17 December 2007) will testify). Secondly, the growth rate in per capita GDP accelerated in China and South Asia after 1980, and the incidence of poverty declined. It is surely misleading to refer (p. 174) to the sharp fall in average annual growth rates in developing countries in the 1980s without weighting for population. In 1900, Europeans were nothing like the 8% of Angola's population claimed on p. 54. They were fewer than 10,000 or an estimated 0.2% of the total population. Zimbabwe's European population in 1900 has been similarly inflated. I was amazed to read (p. 179) that ‘Korea experienced little warfare after 1948’. Does nobody edit books these days?

More problematic, because it lies at the heart of the study, is the blanket assumption that colonial rule in Africa was inimical to economic growth. Whatever one's moral and political antipathy to colonialism, the notion that it induced ‘stagnation’ would not survive a cursory acquaintance with the historical record. Between 1945 and independence, all colonial regimes in Africa invested heavily in social overhead capital and many did more to promote basic education and primary health care than independent India. Among African children of primary-school age, 43% were enrolled at school around 1960; two-fifths or more of the males in Northern and Southern Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, Uganda, and Ghana were literate. The much-maligned Belgians effected dramatic improvements in public health: between 1950 and 1957, infant mortality in Léopoldville fell by two-thirds, and in Elisabethville by three-quarters. These are not symptoms of stagnation. Krieckhaus's wholly negative assessment of the colonial legacy in Portuguese Africa is tendentious: Angola and Mozambique grew rapidly in the final phase of colonial rule, thanks partly to deficit-financed public expenditure on roads, social infrastructure, and military equipment. The level of literacy and skills was very low, but Mozambique's economy was relatively diversified in 1975, with a range of secondary consumer industries, a well-developed system of hydroelectric power, and strong potential for exports and for earning foreign exchange. African farmers and traders shared in the growing prosperity.

A different choice of comparative case studies would, I think, have subverted the study's central theses. Ghana and Malaysia are comparable medium-size, tropical economies. As political entities, both were created by British colonialism. At independence in 1957, Malayans were, on average, somewhat wealthier, healthier, and better educated, but the differences were not such as to account for the dramatic divergence in their economic fortunes from the later 1960s. All analysts agree that the Ghanaian economy deteriorated under the impact of perverse economic policies, which led to a great fall in the output of cocoa, the main export crop; misallocated investment in state-owned white elephants; and socially-destructive monetary inflation. It was a signal instance of bad government and unwise strategies stymieing growth and development. The Malayan Peninsula has more abundant land and a richer portfolio of natural resources than Ghana, but these advantages were turned to good account by the skilful nurturing of indigenous capitalism and the equally skilful accommodation of ethnic communities. Things could just as easily have gone wrong in Malaysia: good policies and a supportive political culture made the difference.