Skip to content
Home/ Routledge Handbook on the History of Development
Routledge Handbook on the History of Development

Routledge Handbook on the History of Development

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9781032286907 Routledge

This bold and ambitious handbook is the first systematic overview of the history of development ideas, themes, and actors in the twentieth century. Taking stock of the field, the book reflects on blind spots, points out avenues for future research, and brings together a greater plurality of regions, actors, and approaches than other publications on the subject.

The book offers a critical reassessment of how historical experiences have shaped contemporary understandings of development, demonstrating that the seemingly self-evident concept of development has been contingent on a combination of material conditions, power structures, and policy choices at different times and in different places. Using a world history approach, the handbook highlights similarities in development challenges across time and space, and it pays attention to the meanings of ideological, cultural, and economic divides in shaping different understandings and practices of development. Taking a thematic approach, the book shows how different actors - governments, non-governmental organizations, individuals, corporations, and international organizations - have responded to concerns regarding the conditions in their own or other societies, such as the provision of education, health, or food; approaches to infrastructure development and industrialization; the adjustment of social conditions; population policies and migration; and the maintenance of stability and security.

Bringing together a range of voices from across the globe, this book will be perfect for advanced students and researchers of international development history.

About the author

Product details

BrandRoutledge
Pub dateMay 27, 2024
ISBN-101032286903
ISBN-139781032286907
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.69 × 0.87 × 6.85 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2025-12-23 22:03
$68.90
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Developing & Emerging Countries
See all
Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-Building and Development in Africa
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-BC-ND 4.0 International License. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. <p/>Why do certain parts of the state in Africa work so effectively despite operating in difficult governance contexts? How do 'pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness' emerge and become sustained over time? And what does this tell us about the prospects for state-building and development in Africa? <p/>Repeated economic and social crises have demanded that development thinkers and policy actors have had to engage with the critical role that states play in delivering development. <em>Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-building and Development in Africa</em> shows that politics is the driving factor that shapes how well state agencies perform their roles. It deploys a new conceptual framework - the power domains approach - to explore the shifting fortunes of key state agencies in five countries - Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia - over the past three decades. Our original research reveals when, how and why political rulers decide to build effective state agencies and enable them to deliver certain forms of economic development - often through forming strategic coalitions with senior bureaucrats and with international support - and also when this support falters and gives way to a politics of survival. Comparative analysis identifies two potential trajectories towards state-building in Africa, each shaped by different configurations of social and political power. The book critiques the role that international development agencies have played in (mis)shaping the state in Africa and suggests a new strategic agenda for building the state capacities required to deliver sustained development at the current juncture. The book closes with critical commentaries from two leading scholars in the field, to help place our work in context and establish the next steps for research and strategy in this increasingly important area of development theory and practice.
$131.97