With all its hopes of a more just and materially prosperous world, development has fascinated societies in both North and South. Looking at this collective fancy in retrospect, Gilbert Rist shows the underlying similarities of its various theories and strategies, and their shared inability to transform the world. He argues persuasively that development has always been a kind of collective delusion which in reality has simply promoted a widening of market relations despite the good intentions of its advocates.
With all its hopes of a more just and materially prosperous world, development has fascinated societies in both North and South. Looking at this collective fancy in retrospect, Gilbert Rist shows the underlying similarities of its various theories and strategies, and their shared inability to transform the world. He argues persuasively that development has always been a kind of collective delusion which in reality has simply promoted a widening of market relations despite the good intentions of its advocates.
Gilbert Rist is a leading Swiss scholar of development and Professor at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva.
Gilbert Rist is a leading Swiss scholar of development and Professor at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva.
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 Europe-Tiers Monde. One of his principal intellectual interests has been to construct an anthology of modernity in which he sees Western society as being every bit as traditional and indeed exotic as any other.
Professor Rist is the author of a number of intellectually pathbreaking books highly critical of conventional thinking in the field. These include:
Il etait une fois le developpement (with Fabrizio Sabelli et al.), Editions d'En Bas, Lausanne, 1986.
Le Nord perdu: Reperes pour l'apres-developpement (with Majid Rahnema and Gustavo Esteva), Editions d'En Bas, Lausanne, 1992.
La mythologie programmee: L'economie des croyances dans la societe moderne (with Marie-Dominique Perrot and Fabrizio Sabelli), PUF, Paris, 1992.
La culture, otage du developpement? (ed.), l'Harmattan, Paris, 1994.
La mondialisation des anti-societes: Espaces reves et lieux communes (ed.), Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l'IUED, No. 6, IUED, Geneve; PUF, Paris, 1997.
The present book is his first to be published in English. It has also been published:
in French: Le developpement: Histoire d'une croyance occidentale, Presse de Sciences Po., Paris, 1996 (2nd edition, 2001).
in Italian: Lo Sviluppo: Sotira di una credenza occidentale, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1997.
in Spanish: El desarrollo: Una ideologia del siglo XX, Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2002.
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 Europe-Tiers Monde. One of his principal intellectual interests has been to construct an anthology of modernity in which he sees Western society as being every bit as traditional and indeed exotic as any other.
Professor Rist is the author of a number of intellectually pathbreaking books highly critical of conventional thinking in the field. These include:
Il etait une fois le developpement (with Fabrizio Sabelli et al.), Editions d'En Bas, Lausanne, 1986.
Le Nord perdu: Reperes pour l'apres-developpement (with Majid Rahnema and Gustavo Esteva), Editions d'En Bas, Lausanne, 1992.
La mythologie programmee: L'economie des croyances dans la societe moderne (with Marie-Dominique Perrot and Fabrizio Sabelli), PUF, Paris, 1992.
La culture, otage du developpement? (ed.), l'Harmattan, Paris, 1994.
La mondialisation des anti-societes: Espaces reves et lieux communes (ed.), Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l'IUED, No. 6, IUED, Geneve; PUF, Paris, 1997.
The present book is his first to be published in English. It has also been published:
in French: Le developpement: Histoire d'une croyance occidentale, Presse de Sciences Po., Paris, 1996 (2nd edition, 2001).
in Italian: Lo Sviluppo: Sotira di una credenza occidentale, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1997.
in Spanish: El desarrollo: Una ideologia del siglo XX, Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2002.
