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The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

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Author: William Easterly
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book

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Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1

ISBN: 0143038826
Dewey Decimal Number: 337
EAN: 9780143038825
ASIN: 0143038826

Publication Date: February 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 53

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Good...a little too far to the right for me, though January 28, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful

Provides a good balance to Jeff Sach's "The End of Poverty." If you haven't read Sach's book, read it first, then Easterly's "The White Man's Burden." Both provide a solution for increasing development among the world's poorest populations. As with most arguments, I think the answer lies somewhere in between their points of view. Read it with a grain of salt and it will temper your idea that MORE money is the ONLY answer.

5 out of 5 stars

White Man's Burden January 14, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

White Man's Burden - An absolute masterpiece. The book clearly describes the differences between the two main development-schools as represented by Easterly Sachs. A must-read for anybody interested in the field of development.

5 out of 5 stars

"idealism, high expectations, disappointing results, cynical backlash" January 13, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

I have been a self-described Easterly fangirl since reading his excellent book The Elusive Quest for Growth. In that book, he had managed to be precise, supported, readable, humane and funny-- all at the same time. In the world of reading about development economics, this was no mean feat.br /br /I had known that this book was out for a while, but had only gotten around to reading it after seeing Easterly here in Amsterdam. He was debating Jan Pronk about what he calls the difference between Planner- and Searcher-based methods of developmental aid. Planners, in his terms, prefer the sweeping top-down approaches to poverty eradication-- all governed by a central committee somewhere else. Searchers adopt a more piecemeal approach to solutions, looking from the bottom up without benefit (or as much benefit) from Utopian ideals. It was a very interesting debate. The audience was full of folks working in various NGOs and developmental organization. It inspired me enough to go ahead and buy The White Man's Burden.br /br /The arguments that Easterly make feel so intuitively correct that they make me suspicious. The bottom line for him seems to be that real situations are individual, and solutions cannot be extrapolated from overriding principles. He is savage towards the unrealistic thinking of the neo-imperialists and unsparing of many of the political sacred cows. He points out that given limited resources, tradeoffs do have to be made. Too many people forget that even given unlimited funding (which is far from the case), resources can still be scarce-- attention, will power, distribution infrastructure, etc. He also says that if goals in aid programs are failing, then throwing more money at them will not help.br /br /I think that Easterly's stand is often miscontrued based on the last point. I have heard detractors say that he is arguing towards limiting aid to the needy poor. There is no substantiation of that-- at least not in his books or in the lecture I attended. Instead, what he argues is that if unrealistic goals and cumbersome structures prevent aid from reaching the poorest, then adding more money on top of the pile will not fix the problem. For any experienced project managers out there, this is going to feel very "right". Easterly is not calling for less spending; he is calling for more sensible spending. He is calling for accountability, practicality, focus and honest evaluation. These are things that should be self-evident, but are apparently very difficult to achieve. He asks the very disturbing question whether the developed countries are more interested in selling their personal ideology in the form of a Utopian vision than they are interested in achieving real change on the ground where it is needed the most.br /br /Other topics include examples of successful "Searcher" strategies for bringing change to the life of the poor; historical numbers looking at the effect of aid on growth; a discussion of the different aid agencies and their limitations; and some thinking about the role (or lack of one) in local governments when it comes to development initiatives.br /br /The White Man's Burden is, as The Elusive Quest for Growth, precise, supported, readable, humane and funny. I think that it is in many respects a stronger book as it better integrates the stories of the poor with the structure. There are many fascinating pointers for further reading. I would have appreciated an annotated bibliography instead of just pulling references from the notes, but I guess that you cannot have everything that you want in a single book. Recommended reading.

5 out of 5 stars

the white man's sense of superiority causing the help not working December 6, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

The more the West will be able to find searchers in the local situation for developing countries, the more the aid business will become effective for the sustainable development. Avoiding the PLANNERS's way of thinking will be helpful. The book has very concrete approach to understand how aid has been useless and how it may be made more effective.br /br /David Suze Manda, a Congolese (DRC) Student in the International Master Degree in Peace, Conflicts and Development, at Universitat Jaume I,Castellon, Spain

3 out of 5 stars

Good, not great December 3, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is a welcome counterpoint to books like Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty." It's written in a casual style, and with helpful explanations for economic concepts. I learned quite a bit. The book suffers for its length, however. The whole of Part III could be eliminated without detracting from the book's main thesis: that bottom-up, rather than top-down, solutions are required to assist developing countries. More attention should have been given to fleshing out that idea, rather than endlessly rehearsing failures of Western aid in poor countries.

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
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