The Mystery of Capital

Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

| 4.25 | 4,060 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Clare Lockhart, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #21 in Development Economics, Ranked #26 in International Business — see more rankings.

"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed... more
Buy on Amazon

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Mystery of Capital from the world's leading experts.

Clare Lockhart So my third book choice is The Mystery Of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist and one of his earliest books was The Other Path, as opposed to the Shining Path, which documents his attempts, along with the government of Peru, to engage with the Shining Path. And his basic thesis in that book is that many so-called insurgents don’t actually want to bring the system down. Instead they are excluded from the system, resent their exclusion, and want in. So they want in, not out. Their bitterness is the result of... (Source)

Rankings by Category

The Mystery of Capital is ranked in the following categories:

Similar Books

If you like The Mystery of Capital, check out these similar top-rated books:

Learn: What makes Shortform summaries the best in the world?

Learn More