Of course! The detailed historical examples. No amount of abstract knowledge can substitute historical discussion.

In fact the academic version (the logic of political survival) is for me less interesting, because it is too much based on data analysis instead of cases.

Thank you very much! I think you will find this interesting:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aCEuvHrqzmBroNQPT/the-evolution-towards-the-blank-slate

The second epigraph is where it gets interesting for you:

This article surveys the evolutionary and game theoretical literature and suggests a new synthesis in the nature-nurture controversy. Gintian strong reciprocity is proposed as the main synthetic theory for evolutionary anthropology, and the thesis here defended is that the humanization process has been mainly one of “de-instinctivation”, that is, the substitution of hardwired behavior by the capabilities to handle cultural objects.

Simple feedback: read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Think about politics in Darwinian terms: who survives the process?

It is well known. The Pax Democrática theory is well known (Bueno de Mesquita “the dictators handbook” is a fantastic reference) and suggests that the commitment capabilities and electoral incentives make democratic war unlikely and democratic alliances powerful.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vjQ5BhKnDyY35dXXf/chomsky-vs-pax-democratica

Thank you very much for the links. As an economist, I have always find growth the most important fact of economics, and growth theory the less interesting economic discipline. 

What do we get out of this? Perhaps a better functional form for production functions? 

But production functions are the most defective part of economic modelling. A way to allow economists to avoid the complexity of intersectoral linkages and explicit technology modelling [https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-540-75751-1]? I am a great fan of market clearing, and rational expectations are a tolerable simplification. But production functions are a form of surrender.

Most of the models in growth theory look to me far away from both policy recommendations, or econometric forecasting. They are "explanatory", and mostly removed from observables. The Von Neumann criticism of complex models ("give me 4 parameters and I can draw an elephant, with 5 it can move its tail”) was the first I thought when I was taught the Romer model.  

Is there any more representative country in the world between 1789 and let’s put the Civil War in 1864? Well, for sure Switzerland, but what else? Tocqueville opinion was that the US was not only formally, but also materially the most democratic among the world powers. I do not see many reason to doubt his observations.

Would UK have banned slavery if the US where still a British colony? Moreover, with a large un represented colonial empire of people of English descent, would the UK keep its parliamentarian path? Many British Whig took a pro colonial position for some reason…

Compared to what? How many countries had a more extensive political participation? Of course, slavery was an abyssal horror, but it was almost universally accepted until 1807. 

Until that date America was the most democratic country in the world, and regarding slavery was not worse than others (in fact, half of America always resisted slavery, finally at an enormous cost).

As Tocqueville understood, democracy is auto catalytic. When you begin with a 3% franchise in 1688, the slope towards 100% is in place. By importing the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution both put the process in motion in a continental size nation and perhaps avoided involution in UK

Oh, sure. Both Washington and Lincoln were more interested in the United States than in slavery. This show that their priority was political instead of ethical. And they were magnificently right, because the United States is to some extent “a machinery of freedom”, an institutional system with the right bias, and that is more important than some material injustice here and now.

More over, I am not defending the ethical superiority of my chosen “saints”; I simply suggest that purity of intention is not the most important valuation criterium. I am simply taking a consequentialist reading of History.

Lincoln was always a very ruthless political operative, but we praise him because in the 1860s the direction of History was mostly “end slavery”.

In the 1770s, the frontier was “no taxation without representation”, and turning a blind eye to slavery was almost inevitable, specially if your political base was from Virginia.

Progress is about concentrating the social force in the place where it can lead to change.

That implies turning a blind eye to anything else.