Criticism and bibliography. Reviews
Ed. J. Braga de Macedo, Colm Foy and Ch.P. Oman. Paris, 2002. 289 p.*
The appearance of the book, prepared by the Center for Development Studies-within the framework of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is symptomatic. This is a kind of summary of the 40-year activity of the Development Center, founded in 1962, to which the second section of the book is devoted, rather, of an informative nature. But the main purpose of the reviewed work is an attempt to assess the previous ideas of development, so popular in the second half of the XX century, their various hypostases and refractions in the economic policy of a set of countries, which, thanks to the successful definition of A. Sauvy (1952), entered the scientific circulation under the name "Third World".
The book was prepared mainly by the staff of the Center, as well as well-known researchers of problems of developing countries who worked at the Center in different years, including E. Maddison, Y. Little and others. The original draft that formed the basis of the work was more accurately titled" Return to the Roots " (Development Redux), because, according to the authors, "looking back can help us move forward, reminding us of decisions that may have been forgotten" (p. 7). However, when publishing the book, the title of the book is not available. it was replaced by the current one, which, in my opinion, can be interpreted very broadly and ambiguously: "Reverse development", "Development returns", "A look at past development", etc.
The subject matter of the reviewed work is diverse and, apparently, largely reflects the personal scientific interests of the authors. These are the problems of globalization, the peculiarities of economic behavior of firms, civil society in the course of development, the tasks of the OECD in the XXI century, and a number of others. But the focus, as the authors repeatedly emphasize, is "Development with big D" in a worl ...
Read more