In "The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality," Angus Deaton sets out to tell a familiar story — that of the long arc of global economic advance — in a fresh way. The author is an economics professor at Princeton University, a renowned development economist and an exceptionally gifted teacher.
Even those familiar with his accomplishments might be surprised by how brilliantly his book succeeds.
The world, he emphasizes, is a vastly better place than it was, and he shows that the usual preoccupation with growth in measured output understates this astounding transformation.