The Post-Development Reader [Paperback]

Majid Rahnema (Editor), Victoria Bawtree (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1856494748 | ISBN-13: 978-1856494748 | Publication Date: March 15, 1997

Most scholars and practitioners are now agreed that the world is on the threshold of a completely new era in the history of development. This Reader brings together in a powerfully diverse, but ultimately coherent, statement some of the very best thinking on the subject by scholars and activists from both North and South. They provide a devastating critique of what the mainstream paradigm has in practice done to the peoples of the world and to their richly diverse and sustainable ways of living. They also present some of the essential ideas out of which the victims of development are now constructing new, humane, culturally and ecologically respectful modes of development.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A monument to the vigour of commonsense in resisting the belief that progress can be likened to a law of nature. This book is a primer for reflection on the fertile potential of the loss of 20th century certainties.' - Ivan Illich

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Zed Books (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856494748
• ISBN-13: 978-1856494748
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory Reading, January 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Post-Development Reader (Paperback)

As an "international development studies" major, I have leared a lot about the issue at my university but have consistently felt that something was missing or maybe wrong. After field experience in rural Bolivia and increasing doubts about the development paradigm, my advisor pointed me to this book (along with Wolfgang Sachs's "Development Dictionary"). At that moment reading these two books, which share much in common, felt like an intellectual revelation. The insights of great authors such as Escobar, Rahnema, Illich, and Shiva felt like a fresh breeze compared to my past studies. The deep insights of the writers have spurred only more questions which have occupied my time and imagination since. Given the stale manner in which development is taught and discussed in the academia and the media, I feel that this book is mandatory for any development student or practitioner regarless of experience or age. It is bound to make you think.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have, December 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Post-Development Reader (Paperback)

This book is a must have for anyone critical of the development discourse. Heavy texts from around forty different progressive scholars are accompanied by boxes with excerpts from even more, such radical thinkers and activists. Refreshing and almost invaluable!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best of Post-development Perspectives, September 24, 2005

By 

Vinod K. Jairath (Hyderabad, India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Post-Development Reader (Paperback)

This is an excellent collection of papers by the best known scholars in the tradition of Post-development perspective. It examines critically most of the key conceptual categories of mainstream developmentalism. Various papers also demonstrate how the radical elements of 'alternative development' are coopted by mainstream developmentalism and therefore end up rejecting altogether the idea of development. A clear statement of the perspective of Post-development also helps its critics who, while critical of many aspects of mainstream developmentalism, refuse to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. Thus The Post-Development Reader is an extremely useful contribution to the literature on development at a time when there is tremendous confusion in development discourses which use the same terms to state very different ideas.