The white man's burden

Description

From one of the world's best-known development economists—an excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West's efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing worldIn his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly criticized the utter ineffectiveness of Western organizations to mitigate global poverty, and he was promptly fired by his then-employer, the World Bank. The White Man's Burden is his widely anticipated counterpunch—a brilliant and blistering indictment of the West's economic policies for the world's poor. Sometimes angry, sometimes irreverent, but always clear-eyed and rigorous, Easterly argues that we in the West need to face our own history of ineptitude and draw the proper conclusions, especially at a time when the question of our ability to transplant Western institutions has become one of the most pressing issues we face.

Description

An attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's efforts to date to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, with constructive suggestions on how to move forward. Economist Easterly discusses the twin tragedies of global poverty: the first, that so many are seemingly fated to live miserable lives and die early deaths; the second, that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid, we have shockingly little to show for it. We preach a gospel of freedom and individual accountability, yet we intrude in the inner workings of other countries through bloated aid bureaucracies--and most of the places in which we've meddled are in fact no better off or are even worse off than they were before. Could it be that we don't know as much as we think we do? -- From publisher description.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The white man's burden: why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little goodPenguin Press2006-01-01
• The White Man's BurdenPenguin (Non-Classics)2007-02-27
• The White Man's BurdenElectronic resourcePenguin Group USA, Inc.2008-01-01