The Great Escape

Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

By: Angus Deaton

Narrated by: Matthew Brenher

The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations.

In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton - one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty - tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind.

Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on one hand and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts - including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions - that will allow the developing world to bring about its own great escape.

Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Angus Deaton (P)2016 Blackstone Audio

Most accessible despite the seriousness of the topic

Deaton uses the story line of the movie The Great Escape to recount how advances in knowledge on health and wealth create the opportunity for some to escape the world of poverty thereby creating or deepening inequality.

This evidence based, jargon free book is refreshingly impartial in its treatment of inequality. A must read (listen) for those who care about inequality and want to do something about it.

The book contains some tables and graphics that are well enough presented but require a little imagination to mentally recreate from the verbal description.

Math errors?

The professor that got a 1% raise on 50k got a $500 raise - not a $1000 raise. Still listening to the rest of the book but I was a bit taken aback by this obvious error.

great, well researched and well thought out book!

Awesome book, but a little hard to follow in audio form without seeing referenced graphs.

Good read with a misleading subtitle

The subtitle of this book made me think the author would be more elucidative about the technical subjects of the original of inequality. Instead it just touched the topic by talking about things that are common knowledge. It's a good reading nonetheless. Narration is pretty good.

what is going on with poverty?

The relationships between wealth and health as weel the influence of political structure and medicine