Benjamin Friedman

Right or wrong, or perhaps somewhere in between, Clark’s is about as
stimulating an account of world economic history as one is likely to
find. Let’s hope that the human traits to which he attributes economic
progress are acquired, not genetic, and that the countries that grow in
population over the next 50 years turn out to be good at imparting
them. Alternatively, we can simply hope he’s wrong.

Here is the full review.

Addendum: Here is today’s NYT essay, arguing for the genetic unity of mankind, here is a previous Slate piece.  Here is a good NYT excerpt:

During World War II, both black and white American soldiers fathered
children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 percent
European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested in
later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were found to
have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an
average of 96.5, a trivial difference.

Second addendum: Here is Deirdre McCloskey’s review of Clark.