Joel Mokyr, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University

This is an important book about the determinants of technological creativity and why the West has been successful in promoting and adopting new technology for economic progress. The Lever of Riches is a valuable book that every economist should read. - Gary D. Libecap, University of Arizona, Journal of Comparative Economics 15 (1991)

it brings together a wealth of information on the development of technology and the means of analysing it ... it is so splendidly provocative - Roger Burt, University of Exeter, Economic History Review, Aug '91

This is an ambitious and intriguing book ... What marks it out is the sophisticated handling of the theory of techonological change, within an evolutionary theoretical paradigm ... this is an important, erudite and engrossing book, and is lifely to be one of the key works in the emerging evolutionary analysis of technological change. It is essential reading for those interested in both economic history and the development of evolutionary economics. - Geoff Hodgson, University of Cambridge