Probing the difficult questions of why some modern industrialized nations are more successful than others at providing basic freedoms and a decent standard of living to their people, the author looks to the cultural values underpinning societies, arguing that they are the key to understanding the success or failure of the 'developed' nation. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

In this study the author offers a new way of looking at development and underdevelopment, one that explains why some countries and some ethnic groups do better than others. After 20 years of working on Latin America's development problems, the author is convinced that it is the way Latin Americans see the world that principally explains why Latin America is underdeveloped and unstable, with its wealth and land so inequitably distributed. The book challenges a conventional wisdom, subscribed to around the world, that blames the rich countries for the poverty of the poor countries. (view table of contents)

'Harrison continues his provocative but hardly novel thesis established in prior works, that the most important factor explaining US and Canadian 'progress' and Latin American 'underdevelopment' is 'the contrast between Anglo-Protestant and Ibero-Catholic culture.' Thus his answer to subtitle question is 'not necessarily' but a successful process will be very difficult'--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/ (view table of contents)