Mortgaging The Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development [Hardcover]

Bruce Rich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1994

An informed and widely acclaimed critique of the World Bank and its destructive impact on the environment, as well as a questioning of the underlying assumptions and goals of economic development.

"A hard-hitting and authoritative work, useful and provocative." --Christian Science Monitor

"A detailed and thought-provoking look at an important subject from the viewpoint of a passionate advocate." --New York Times Book Review

"You don't have to be a card-carrying green to benefit from this chronicle of how the World Bank became a powerful force for the destruction of the natural environment." --Boston Globe

"This badly needed analysis exposes the destructive alliance between the bank and national governments that, in the name of progress, has plundered natural resources and impoverished millions . . . . [Rich's] merciless evaluation should help provoke an overdue debate about the bank's future." --Business Week

"Rich . . . is right in his criticism of the bank s lending practices on many counts." --Financial Times, London

"A lively synthesis of previously unseen Bank documents, human rights reports, journal articles, economic history, and interviews with former and current Bank staffers." --Village Voice Literary Supplement

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The World Bank, the largest single source of financial and economic assistance in the world, was founded in 1946 to alleviate poverty and promote development . Rich, senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, charges that today's Bank is institutionally debased and intellectually corrupt. His well-documented indictment focuses on the Bank's record in regard to the environment, citing Bank-supported projects that ignore end-use efficiency, conservation and local social organizations. Rich examines projects in the largest borrowing countries: transmigration in Indonesia; dams in India; deforestation, dams and roads in Brazil. These projects force the displacement of millions of impoverished people. Rich argues that the story is repeated in Africa, Malaysia and Thailand. He argues that global environmental management fails because there are no global solutions, only local ones. Rich points to such agencies as Inter-American, the African Development Foundation, Appropriate Technology International and Oxfam as organizations that take a more sensible, effective local approach to development than does the World Bank. This expose deserves a wide readership.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The degradation of the environment and the deepening of poverty in the Third World have been intertwined over the past 30 years. Rich argues that the top-down development approach pursued by the World Bank (and most other international lenders) has much to do with these outcomes. A lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, Rich has for over a decade worked within a vibrant international network of grass-roots activists to mitigate and change the lending policies of the World Bank--with some success. His book is one of the most insightful and detailed accounts of the World Bank's planning processes and their negative environmental impacts across the Third World. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
- Bill Rau, Takoma Park, Md.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (February 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080704704X
• ISBN-13: 978-0807047040
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,222,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Critique of Macro-Development, February 3, 2000

By 

James O. Schlicht - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mortgaging the Earth (Paperback)

Bruce Rich has given those of us interested in the politics of development much to think about. His well-researched, thought-provoking analysis of the World Bank, while scrupulously fair, is scathing.

From EGAT in Thailand, through Polonoroeste in Brazil, to the Narmada Dams in India, he paints a picture of an institution that is out of control and which bears at least partial responsibility for much human suffering and environmental devastation. While the World Bank would have us believe that it is on the cutting edge of responsible development and is assisting the entire Third World in its struggle to develop, Rich shows us some of the consequences of the philosophy that development is good, no matter what its human and environmental costs.

I use this book as a primary text in a college-level introductory comparative politics course dealing with the Third World. My students have been shocked by this book into some original thought about the conceptions underlying development strategies, and, I think, have emerged from this course with minds that are more open to challenging the conventional wisdom regarding the politics of development. For that, if nothing else, Rich deserves a vote of thanks.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dismal news from the dismal science, November 26, 2007

By 

Cecil Bothwell "Author of "Whale Falls: A... (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mortgaging the Earth (Paperback)

Even if you are somewhat aware of the scourge known as the World Bank you would probably be aghast at the carefully documented disasters covered in MORTGAGING THE EARTH. Bruce Rich, senior attorney and director of the International Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, spent more than a year cataloging the material in this comprehensive investigative report. World Bank projects have dislocated millions of people, impoverished the poor, facilitated wide transmission of disease, deforested Amazonia, and set up a system of debtor nations who pay tribute in the form of labor and resources. As economies collapse under the strain of foriegn debt, the International Monetary Fund steps in and forces "restructuring" or "adjustments" which almost universally cuts social and health services, forces more people off of their land and diverts more of a nation's wealth to repayment of loans. All of this damage has been wrought in the name of development and with the pretense of helping bring the third world into modern times. Instead, it has created a fourth world of environmental and developmental refugees. A dismal tale indeed.