book report

[Michael Eisenstadt]

I find myself REreading David Landes' The Wealth
and Poverty of Nations. His subtitle is WHY SOME 
ARE SO RICH AND SOME ARE SO POOR.

like Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations
(which I think is still a must read), Landes' book was 
published in the nineties BEFORE 9-11

If you are at all in to non mathematical economic
history, you will find Landes' book a great read

Landes touches on Algeria in his survey, a country
that ballooned from 9 million in 1960 to 27 million.
They have the wall people, the unemployed who have
nothing to do but lean against a wall and watch the
street go by

i had known that a civil war between the secular
military dictatorship and an Islamic insurgency
had killed up to 100,000 civilians to date. i had
NOT known the following factoid

"...rebels in Algeria have gone out of their way to be cruel, 
dispatching victims whenever possible by cutting their throat. 
This saves bullets and supposedly brings the killer nearer to 
God."

the footnote to this factoid cites an article titled
"Sept journees ordinaires dans la vie des Algeriens"
(1996) which was written by......Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk? that Robert Fisk? wow!