Development studies: Key first-year reads
A shortlist of recommended books for first-year university students interested in development studies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/21/first-year-development-student-books
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 September 2011 16.07 BST
Our list of key reads will help first-year students in development studies.
Development studies is a diverse and evolving field, and many students interested in global development come at the key issues from very different angles – with some focusing more on development economics, for example, and others on the politics or anthropology of development. It is also a deeply contested field, with a complex history of its own.
What binds much of development studies together is a set of key debates about the relationships between history, culture, politics, economics and wellbeing. What kinds of public policies drive economic growth? Who benefits from growth, and in which ways? How have global economic structures – including the international aid system – impacted on local politics and key development outcomes? How have the recent food, financial and fuel crises affected developing countries? What will it take to meet the millennium development goals?
We've put together a shortlist of key reads for students interested in development studies. The titles below cover a wide range of subjects and an equally wide range of ways to approach development issues. Whether you're sitting next to a well-thumbed copy of an Amartya Sen or picking up Adam Przeworski for the first time, let us know what you think. Which book changed the way you think about a key development debate? Which ways of approaching development issues do you find most compelling? What other books would you recommend, particularly for first-year reading?
• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
• Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty
• Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defence of Globalisation
• Ester Boserup, Woman's Role in Economic Development
• Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa
• Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective
• Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
• William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts To Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
• Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World
• Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation
• Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor
• James Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine: "Development", Depoliticisation and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho
• Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos, David Hulme, Just Give Money To the Poor: the Development Revolution from the Global South
• Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control
• Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity
• Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa
• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
• CK Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
• Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990
• Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
• Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
• James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes To Improve the human Condition Have Failed
• Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom
• Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and Its Discontents
Whether you're on page one or page 100, let us know what you think about these and other books tackling the key issues in development studies. We've created a list of our first-year development studies books, and would love to see any lists you create.
