Book description
Why does capitalism triumph in the West but fail almost everywhere
else? Elegantly, and with rare clarity, Hernando de Soto
revolutionizes our understanding of what capital is and why it has
failed to benefit four-fifths of mankind -- and explains the solution.
'A revolutionary book . . . may not be in the class of Das Kapital,
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the
criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to
change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change
the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this
book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent
'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto . . . but The
Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the
pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' Mark Leonard,
New Statesman
'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for
the whole world' - Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)
Hernando de Soto is the founder and President of the Institute of
Liberty and Democracy (ILD) in Lima, Peru, regarded by The Economist as
the second most important think-tank in the world. He has also been an
economist for GATT (now WTO), CEO of one of Europe's largest engineering
firms, and as a governor of Peru's Central Reserve Bank. As President
Alberto Fujimori's Personal Representative and Principal Advisor, he
initiated Peru's economic reforms and played a leading role in
modernizing its economic and political system. In 1993 de Soto drew up
and negotiated the strategic plan that reversed Fujimori's coup d'etat
and returned the country to electoral democracy. He and ILD are
currently working in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America on the
practical implementation of the measures for bringing the poor into the
economic mainstream introduced in The Mystery of Capital. He was
recently listed by Time magazine as one of the five leading Latin
American innovators of the twentieth century. His previous book, The
Other Path, was published in more than ten languages and was a number
one bestseller throughout Latin America.
