Asunción, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Bucharest, Gdańsk, Hanoi, Kathmandu, Montevideo, Memphis, New York, Santiago de Chile, Seoul, Tbilisi, Tirana, Ulaanbaatar, Zurich – these are just a few of the stops on Rainer Zitelmann’s round-the-world trip. Over a period of 20 months, the historian and sociologist travelled through 30 countries on four continents, covering 260,000 kilometres.
The author presents a fascinating blend of personal travel impressions, historical research, the results of international surveys and, above all, hundreds of conversations with economists, entrepreneurs, journalists, politicians and ordinary people in these countries. This book allows readers to experience the 30 countries more thoroughly than any tourist visit could. It introduces the societies and their contexts, the nations with their history and their future. From the perspective of an intellectual champion of freedom, it shows how poverty and wealth arise.
