Thismonograph explores the causes of the West’s economic growth over the last 2,000 years and contrasts it with the economic history of the rest of the world.

Christopher DeMuthPresidentAmerican Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Cordially invites you to attend the2001 Henry Wendt Lecture

World Economic Growth: The Past 1,000 Years

Angus MaddisonWendt Visiting Scholar, AEI

Marking the birth of the 7 billionth person on earth, here are five myths challenging everything you think you know about the world's population.

The West’s economic growth and lead in technology goes backpast the Industrial Revolution and has been sustained by the continuing interplay of scientific inquiry and eveyday experience.

Poverty will always exist, compared to others, but we cannot deny that quality of life, on a global level, has improved.

Why have a few countries, mostly in Western Europe and North America, become so much wealthier than the rest of the world's nations?

Europe's history demonstrates that looking outward--not inward--is the key reason why Europe took the lead from medieval times on.