OUR LONG WALK TO ECONOMIC FREEDOM, why we live better than our ancestors, a fully revised and expanded second edition

292pp., maps, paperback, Second Edition, Tafelberg, Cape Town, (2021) 2025

ISBN: 9780624093480

" In this deeply thoughtful but broadly accessible tour of global economic history from the time of our savanna-roaming ancestors to the pandemic, Fourie distils the essence of a vast body of recent economic history research into teachable nuggets that raise as many questions as they answer. The African focus of his presentation will be instructive to many, and the prose delightfully engaging for all. His commitment to understanding the historical roots of prosperity and ensuring its wide distribution in the future makes this also one of the most humane economic histories I have read." Anne McCants, Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and President of the International Economic History Association

"This is the first book to bring Africa in from the margins and place it centrally into the big narratives of world economic history. The subject will never be the same again." James Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fail

Johan Fourie is Chair of Economics, History and Policy at Stellenbosch University. He is a founding member of the African Economic History Network, a former president of the Economic History Society of Southern Africa, and the director of LEAP, the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa's Past. He runs the Our Long Walk podcast, where he interviews social science scholars about the past, present and future of South Africa.