This is the third edition of a classic development text, which has both defined and changed its field. In the History of Development Gilbert Rist provides a complete and powerful overview of what the idea of development has meant throughout history. He traces it from its origins in the Western view of history, through the early stages of the world system, the rise of US hegemony and the supposed triumph of the third world, to new concerns about the environment and globalization. In two new chapters on the Millennium Development Goals and post-development thinking. Rist bring the book completely up to date. Throughout, he argues persuasively that development has been no more than a collective delusion, which in reality has only resulted in widening market relations, despite the good intentions of its advocates. Lucidly and powerfully written, this new edition is more essential than ever for students and practitioners of development.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gilbert Rist
Gilbert Rist has for many years been a leading Swiss scholar of development. Before joining the staff of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva, where he has been a professor since 1986, he first taught in Tunisia and then spent several years as Director of the Centre Europ-Tiers Monde. One of his principal intellectual interests has been to construct an anthropology of modernity in which he sees Western society as being every bit a traditional and indeed exotic as any other. Professor Rist is the author of a number of intellectually path breaking books highly critical of conventional thinking in the field. The present book is his first to be published in English. It has also been published in French as Le development: Histoire d'une croyance occidentale (Press de Sciences Po. Paris, 1996; 2nd edn, 2001); in Italian as Lo Sviluppo: Sotira di una credenza occidentale (Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1997); and in Spanich as El desarrollo: Una ideologia del siglo XX (Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2002).
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