Jonathan Skobel’s Reviews > Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty > Status Update
Jonathan Skobel
is 13% done
Additionally he seems not to be able to convince that geography has a relative value rather than an absolute value. The thought that the geography that best supports a Neolithic civilization could be different than the geography best suited for a modern age civilization never seems to occur to him.
— Jan 22, 2026 06:15AM
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Jonathan Skobel
is 13% done
The hopes I’ve had for this book have been dashed in the second chapter. The author seems unable to conceive that their could but multiple different points of failure in a nation; outright rejecting ideas because they don’t explain his one treasured example of Nogales. He straw mans the geography hypothesis and rejects it without ever engaging with any of Thomas Sowells ideas.
— Jan 22, 2026 06:12AM
