The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
by William Easterly
List Price:
Our Price: $16.43
You Save: $11.52 (41%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $13.78 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: William EasterlyEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-03-16
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Book Reviews of The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
Book Review: Want to understand the World?
Summary: 5 Stars
I highly reccommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the world as it is. Economic, political, and historic factors make the world we live in, with the sharp contrasts inside and inbetween countries. Easterly efficiently describes why such constrasts exist, and what can be done to reduce inequality, at several levels (e.g. national policies, political programs, local development). For anyone interested in social development, or just in knowing why some people don't have food in their tables everyday, three times a day.
Make yourself conscious of the world you live in, and, even better, take action to modify reality.
Summary of The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
An informed and excoriating 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.William Easterly's The White Man's Burden is about what its author calls the twin tragedies of global poverty. The first, of course, is that so many are seemingly fated to live horribly stunted, miserable lives and die such early deaths. The second is that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid from the West to address the first tragedy, it has shockingly little to show for it. We'll never solve the first tragedy, Easterly argues, unless we figure out the second.
The ironies are many: We preach a gospel of freedom and individual accountability, yet we intrude in the inner workings of other countries through bloated aid bureaucracies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that are accountable to no one for the effects of their prescriptions. We take credit for the economic success stories of the last fifty years, like South Korea and Taiwan, when in fact we deserve very little. However, we reject all accountability for pouring more than half a trillion dollars into Africa and other regions and trying one "big new idea" after another, to no avail. 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 about the magic spells that will open the door to the road to wealth?
Absolutely, William Easterly thunders in this angry, irreverent, and important book. He contrasts two approaches: (1) the ineffective planners' approach to development-never able to marshal enough knowledge or motivation to get the overambitious plans implemented to attain the plan's arbitrary targets and (2) a more constructive searchers' approach-always on the lookout for piecemeal improvements to poor peoples' well-being, with a system to get more aid resources to those who find things that work. Once we shift power and money from planners to searchers, there's much we can do that's focused and pragmatic to improve the lot of millions, such as public health, sanitation, education, roads, and nutrition initiatives. We need to face our own history of ineptitude and learn our lessons, especially at a time when the question of our ability to "build democracy," to transplant the institutions of our civil society into foreign soil so that they take root, has become one of the most pressing we face.
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Becoming an Economist
Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Societyby Robert Higgs
Independent Institute; Published: 2005-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.93
Price in other shops:
New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thoughtby Todd G. Buchholz
Plume; Published: 2007-04-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.94
Price in other shops:
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Goodby William Easterly
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2006-03-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.07
Price in other shops:
More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economicsby Steven E. Landsburg
Free Press; Published: 2007-04-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentistby Tyler Cowen
Dutton Adult; Published: 2007-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.32
Price in other shops:
The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economicsby Michael Shermer
Times Books; Published: 2007-12-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.53
Price in other shops:
Basic Economics 3rd Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economyby Thomas Sowell
Basic Books; Published: 2007-04-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.16
Price in other shops:
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Scienceby Charles Wheelan
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2003-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.72
Price in other shops:
Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Lifeby Steven E. Landsburg
Free Press; Published: 1995-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economicsby Henry Hazlitt
Three Rivers Press; Published: 1988-12-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.88
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
In Defense of Globalization: With a New Afterwordby Jagdish Bhagwati
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-09-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Elseby Hernando De Soto
Basic Books; Published: 2000-09-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.91
Price in other shops:
Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Povertyby Muhammad Yunus
PublicAffairs; Published: 2008-01-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.22
Price in other shops:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)by CK Prahalad
Wharton School Publishing; Published: 2006-02-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.89
Price in other shops:
Globalization and Its Discontentsby Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2003-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops:
Making Globalization Workby Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton; Published: 2007-09-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.95
Price in other shops:
The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Workingby Robert Calderisi
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2007-05-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.60
Price in other shops:
Development as Freedomby Amartya Sen
Anchor; Published: 2000-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.33
Price in other shops:
The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropicsby William Easterly
The MIT Press; Published: 2002-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About Itby Paul Collier
Oxford University Press; Published: 2007-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.77
Price in other shops: