Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State [Paperback]

Stephen G. Bunker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 1990 | ISBN-10: 0226080323 | ISBN-13: 978-0226080321 | Edition: 1

Underdeveloping the Amazon shows how different extractive economies have periodically enriched various dominant classes but progressively impoverished the entire region by disrupting both the Amazon Basin's ecology and human communities. Contending that traditional models of development based almost exclusively on the European and American experience of industrial production cannot apply to a regional economy founded on extraction, Stephen G. Bunker proposes a new model based on the use and depletion of energy values in natural resources as the key to understanding the disruptive forces at work in the Basin.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (March 20, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226080323
• ISBN-13: 978-0226080321
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Critical to understanding "weak" regions, January 20, 2001

By 

Norman Dale (Prince George) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State (Paperback)

Everyone is concerned about tropical rainforest destruction but most of the analyses of WHY this happens are little more than rankly amateurish enviro-sensationalism. For those who are not content with explaining the tragedy with buzz phrases like "corporate greed" or the "rape of the environment" this analysis will reward your hard work (and it is hard going in places). Bunker shows how political and economic power and therefore environmental quality are systemically drained from a resource-rich region by the concerted (not necessarily conspiring) forces -- private and public sector -- from more populated "centres". The author is well versed in comparative theories of underdevelopment and provides, inter alia, a clear and concise review of these. he uses energy as a common denominator for what is lost and taken from the Amazon. Bunker's approach will be useful to those of us who reside in and/or care about the human and natural communities of sparsely populated areas.