The book does not look coherent; it is as if it was a louse collection of anecdotal stories, interleaved with some thoughts on ill-defined concepts introduced by its authors. The anecdotal stories seem to be selected by a cherry-picking, leaving an impression of cognitive bias; and every conclusion is unfalsifiable even considering its informality (e.g. if the country with "extractive institutions" is still growing, that must be because it is wrong type of growth, which will soon end; and if the country with "inclusive institutions" has failed, that must be because there were some external problems; and it does not matter that in some of the "extractive" countries growth has persisted for much longer than in some of the "inclusive" countries).

I would recommend everyone interested in this topic to read Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay" instead. It touches upon the very same problem; yet does it in much more logical and consistent way. And three pillars by Fukuyama (strong state, rule of law, and accountability) are much clearer than not-really-defined "inclusive political institutions" and "inclusive economic institutions" by Acemoglu; one could notice that Acemoglu sometimes even violates its own model and actually talks about Fukuyama's pillars, without mentioning these by name!