First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
www.profilebooks.com
First published in the United States of America in 2012 by
Crown Publishers, a division of Random House Inc.
Copyright © Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, 2012
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Book design by Leonard Henderson
Maps by Melissa Dell
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays, Bungay, Suffolk
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN 978 1 84668 429 6
Export edition ISBN 978 1 84668 610 8
eISBN 978 1 84765 461 8
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Council A.C. (FSC). It is ancient-forest friendly. The printer holds FSC chain of custody
SGS-COC-2061