The Challenge Of The Third World

In this exploration of the political, economic and social issues that face diverse Third World countries, Howard Handelman examines the nature of underdevelopment and discusses explanatory theories of redevelopment.

This book provides a general overview of the challenges of economic development for the five billion people living in developing countries. While they constitute over 80 percent of the world's population, they account for only 40% of the world's output, and are home to 2.6 billion people living on less than $2.00 per day. Thinking on economic development has shifted over time. Early theories that stressed capital formation and a heavy reliance on the public sector proved inadequate. Gradually, economists began to see that development was a complex, multifaceted problem that combined economic issues with problems of poverty and income distribution, insititution building and governance. While there have been many failures, there have also been many successes. Countries such as China, Chile, Ghana, and Korea demonstrate that good policies and strong institutions can result in remarkable progress. However, many poor countries, particularly those in Africa continue to lag behind. Closing this gap remains a major challenge for the world, particularly as the growing population and output of developing countries accelerate tensions in such areas as trade, immigration and financial flows.

Challenges of the Developing World is a lively, up-to-date, and highly readable introduction to the key dynamics and issues of political, economic and social development in the “developing countries” of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

In formulating policy toward the Third World, U.S. decisionmakers have been hampered by a superficial understanding of events in developing countries, by a tendency to deal with Third World problems in terms of global considerations, and by the role of the United States as a superpower with responsibility for helping to manage regional security aff

This personal account expresses a dissatisfaction with the social system under which we live; it arises from the author's wide experience of the relations between the developing countries and the Western world. Sir Joseph's thesis is that in taking that the West has to offer and deploying it in the Third World one can see more clearly the constraints and drawbacks of our own social and economic system. This is the challenge. The book sets out to explore the ways in which we could move away from the limitations and injustices of our system towards something better. Based on the Eddington Memorial Lectures given at the University of Cambridge in November 1974, the book sets out the belief that the Christian faith offers the incentive to undertake a revision of our social life that will call for sacrifice from those of us who are now affluent and powerful.