World economy : a millennial perspective

Angus Maddison provides a comprehensive view of the growth and levels of world population since the year 1000. In this period, world population rose 22-fold, per capita GDP 13-fold and world GDP nearly 300-fold. The biggest gains occurred in the rich countries of today (Western Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan). The gap between the world leader - the United States - and the poorest region - Africa - is now 20:1. In the year 1000, the rich countries of today were poorer than Asia and Africa..

The book has several objectives. The first is a pioneering effort to quantify the economic performance of nations over the very long term. The second is to identify the forces which explain the success of the rich countries, and explore the obstacles which hindered advance in regions which lagged behind. The third is to scrutinise the interaction between the rich and the rest to assess the degree to which this relationship was exploitative.

The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective is a "must" for all scholars of economics and economic history, while the casual reader will find much of fascinating interest. It is also a monumental work of reference. The book is a sequel to the author's 1995 Monitoring the World Economy: 1820-1992 and his 1998 Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, both published by the OECD Development Centre.