Well, the thesis of "The Bottom Billion" is that a billion people have been stuck living in economies that have been stagnant for 40 years, and hence diverging from the rest of mankind.
我于《最底层的10亿人》就已提出 现今仍有10亿人被囚于困境中， 他们所处的世界的经济状况依然是四十年如一日， 因此他们正自我们的世界脱离。