This book will not take as its province all kinds of cultural growth — artistic, philosophical, military — but will try to shed some light on a narrower problem, namely, the reasons for economic growth and decline. The way wealth is distributed is a matter of special interest, partly because it may well be basic to growth in other cultural areas and partly because it has become so uneven in the past century that curiosity has been aroused.

p. 1 - The Archiving Society, 1961