The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power

Description

The original critical guide to key concepts in development studies from some of the world's most eminent critical development scholars and practitioners. Each essay in this now classic collection examines one key development concept, from the 'environment' to 'needs' and 'progress' to 'production'. Each concept is reviewed from a historical and anthropological point of view, with particular bias and intellectual flaws being highlighted. Overall, the authors argue that we must bid farewell to the whole idea of Eurocentric development in order to liberate people's minds in both North and South and to mobilize for bold responses to the environmental and ethical challenges now confronting humanity. The result is an indispensable resource for scholars, practitioners, movements and students of development which invites us to recognize the tinted glasses we put on whenever we participate in the development discourse.

Wolfgang Sachs is an author and Research Director at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, in Germany. He has been chair of the board of Greenpeace Germany, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and is a member of the Club of Rome. He teaches at Schumacher College and as Honorary Professor at the University of Kassel. His other books include Planet Dialectics (with Susan George, Zed 2015), and the edited collection Fair Future (Zed 2007).

Short, pithy and well reasoned... There is something in each chapter to challenge, even assault, our dearest, most tightly held assumptions. * Praise for the First Edition, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society * The Development Dictionary questions the whole basis for twentieth century development through a series of brilliantly written essays by leading writers from around the world. * Praise for the First Edition, Resurgence * Unique...the book is a scream of pain from the receiving end of a process experienced as cultural genocide. * Praise for the First Edition, The Guardian *