"Many great minds have written many great books about why Europe spearheaded technological progress and economic growth in the past three centuries. Joel Mokyr has joined their ranks with admirable verve, erudition, and originality. In his account, a change in the beliefs, values, and preferences of Europeans drove them to accumulate, share, and apply knowledge as it had never been done before. Agree or disagree with Mokyr's thesis, you definitely need to take it seriously."—Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Why Nations Fail"Mokyr's new masterpiece is a virtuoso display of how new thinking in economics can bring a deeper understanding of one of the most important events in human history. A Culture of Growth documents the cultural shifts that permitted the interrogation of nature that then flowered into scientific advances. This book offers us an optimistic vision: a great expansion of communication preceded our modern prosperity, and we can expect this to happen again."—Angus Deaton, 2015 Nobel Laureate in Economics“In A Culture of Growth, Joel Mokyr explores in detail the interactions among groups of educated people that led to the creation of specific innovative ideas important in the Industrial Revolution. Mokyr’s historical laboratory is early modern Europe but his methods and findings seem to me equally useful in thinking about the prospects for a variety of contemporary economies the world over.”—Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1995 Nobel Laureate in Economics"In this immensely learned book, Mokyr argues that a specific culture of growth anchored in the Republic of Letters, spread through the enlightened circuits beginning with Britain, and made the Industrial Revolution happen. Written by America's leading economic historian, A Culture of Growth is magisterial and long overdue."—Margaret Jacob, University of California, Los Angeles"A giant among the masters of economic history, Mokyr has written a brilliant, persuasive, humane, penetrating, and sensationally good book. Mokyr looks at the immensely powerful idea of a progressive Baconian science, which stepped down from theory to enrich the modern world. The range of scholarship is astonishing and this major work will become a standard in the literature on economic growth."—Deirdre McCloskey, author of Bourgeois Equality