This is Part 6 of an 8-Part series on Geography and Culture. See here for the complete series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7s6piXiFK-TaMDsKM4I7IS7iaNiyONEM

I love listening to Dr. Sowell's wonderful explanations for everything.

Informative and insightful as always!

As always, excellently explained to be easily understood.

Amazing how so many refuse to acknowledge how climate and geography go hand and hand with a country’s economic development. When it’s easier to travel and grow food, it’s easier to sell the food at a greater. You also have more free time to learn other skills and trades. Then you have more capital to invest, which allows for growth of the country’s industry.

and I thought it was because they just freed themselves from communism a few decades ago.

goes to show that, just because an idea makes sense, does not mean it is correct.

Excellent analysis 👏 🇬🇧 uk

Thanks!

Great work Dr. Sowell. Scooby snacks for you!

Of course being in the soviet bloc wouldn’t help either.I’ve seen pictures of Prague and warsaw before the war and they seemed pretty prosperous.

Feeding the YouTube algorithm. Love Sowell. Great video.

You havent even mentioned socialism and central managed economies, the truth is that a lot of these countries were pretty 'rich' before ww2

What this Westerner refused to mention was all the wars and foreign occupations we went through all of our history (for Russia, a lot but not the entirety). The Mongols ravaged and destroyed the entirety of the Rus' land for centuries while making the Rus' their slaves. This set Russia back quite a bit in a number of ways. Then all the wars with the Turks and having to pretty much defeat the Nazis on their own. Very hard for a country to be doing well after all those struggles.

and then us South Slavs were controlled by the Ottomans for 500 years which set us back a lot in our development. Not to mention the 100-200 years of war we went through defending Europe from extremist Islam while Westerners could comfortably engage in the Renaissance. Then you have communism which hurt us a lot.

I mean, as a Brit, I can see how our island had the best of it regarding no land border and access to the sea! I am glad that a more vigorous race wasn't here as they would have truly dominated the world!

He describes it so well

I'm from Balkan, we have to translate Thomas Sowell in albanian, serbo-croatian, bullgarian, rumunian, greec ..

I don't discount Mr Sowell's argument, I would add a major game changer was between the eastern and the western doctrine of the Trinity. Even the Catholic Church held a different view from the eastern church. The reformation gave way to more literacy, the Protestant work ethic, which resulted in rapid advances in the sciences and technology.

So now I wonder why India, which is by the ocean, has a warm climate, natural wealth, and at the same time is much poorer than those poor Eastern European countries?

Most of Eastern Europe was not touched by any Ancient advanced civilisation, either - they had to develop their own, except for the South Slavs. However, the South Slavs themselves didn't have it easy, being subjugated by Franks, Bulgars and Byzantines, and later Magyars, Ottomans, Romanians, Austrians, Soviets, etc.

Had at least one Slavic state managed to conquer the whole or most of the region in the Early Middle Ages - it would have resisted invasions more successfully and the Balkans would have been richer now, due to them being a part of one country that had a continuous cultural and economic development. Not interrupted by other peoples who have occupied or annexed it.

I love that I get smarter everytime I listen to or read anything from Thomas Sowell

Basically geographical advantage

As an eastern european I want to say that while what Sowell explained might be true, the reasons he gave are minor in comparison to the economic damage that Russia and Communism caused in eastern Europe. Just take any economic, social map and overlay it with the iron curtain map and you will understand what it's actually about.

Excellent series

I think I underappreciate how important trade is.

Thomas Sowell is my favourite historian! Cheers from the Eastern Europe!