1. ‘Where the Sandalwood Is Born’: East Timor until the Mid-Eighteenth Century -- 2. The Two Last Centuries of Portuguese Domination -- 3. The Indonesian Occupation -- 4. The Economy under Occupation -- 5. Launching a New State -- 6. Conclusions

Douglass North once emphasized that development takes centuries, but he did not have a theory of how and why change occurs. This groundbreaking book advances such a theory by examining in detail why England and Spain developed so slowly from 1000 to 1800. A colonial legacy must go back centuries...