In the Americas, the Rio Grande has become not just a physical border, but an economic and social one as well. How can we explain the existence of two Americas one prosperous, one poor physically so close together, yet economically so far apart? The Roots of Poverty is an in-depth analysis of how cultural, religious and social institutions have shaped the economic destinies of North America and Latin America over the last five hundred years. The British, who instituted constitutional limitations for the monarchy and protection of individual rights, wooed their colonists with promises...