The best books in the world on international development

This book was published in 1961 by Frantz Fanon as he was participating in, and attempting to influence to course of, the Algerian revolution against French colonialism.

It is a must-read for anyone interested in development for several reasons. It highlights the barbarity of settler colonialism – in opposition to apologetic accounts that celebrate it as part of a civilizing mission.

It shows how racism was (and still is) a way to order the world – between more and less valued populations.

It provides an incredibly prescient analysis of the emergent post-colonial elites, and how while they talked the language of progress their objectives were to obtain and preserve their elite status against the interests of the mass of the population.

And finally, and most brilliantly, Fanon outlines his idea of a new humanism which had two key elements.

First, he argued for the democratic ownership and management of the economy by the many for the many. Secondly, his new humanism is based upon transcending the notion of race (‘black’, ‘white’ etc) and a vision of real substantive equality between human beings.

This is a vision that we should continue to aspire to. 

The study of world development is often conflated with a particular image of capitalism, where the latter is associated with freedom – the freedom to buy and sell goods, including one's capacity to work.

In this book Eric Williams shows to the contrary, how capitalism was founded upon the vast expansion of unfreedom. He details how slavery provided much of the material resources that facilitated industrialisation in Britain and beyond.

In doing this Williams shows how the original division, between wealthy states in today’s ‘global north’ and impoverished states in the ‘global south’, was established and reproduced over several centuries. 

I’m writing this section just a couple of days after International Women’s Day (IWD).

IWD 2023 focussed on the gender gap in digital innovation. Closing this gap would contribute to progress in achieving substantive gender equality, but IWD organisers also argue, it would generate more economic growth.

This narrative is partial and ideological. It uses a fact (the gender gap) and a worthy objective (of eliminating that gap) to promote a particular conception of women – something that Naila Kabeer illuminates with great effect in Reversed Realities.

Part of the reason for socio-economic gender gaps is the amount of (often unpaid) time women spend caring for others. While care is foundational to what makes us human, in contemporary capitalist societies care work is devalued to the extent that much of it goes unpaid. Could it be otherwise?

Kabeer shows how so much ideology about gender equality is based upon the premise that women need to become more like men (through closing the gender gap). Can we think differently about real equality between women and men?

In a dynamite phrase, Kabeer notes how while mainstream feminism’s objective was and continues to be to facilitate women becoming more like men, ‘that men could be as good as women did not…appear to be an important consideration.’

What would development look like if care were placed front and centre, rather than at the margins of society? Reversed Realities kick-starts this vital conversation.

This short (190-page) book shows how the global food system is intrinsically connected to world region’s diverse developmental trajectories, covering the colonial era to the green revolution to the contemporary corporate-dominated food system.

Historically, agriculture has been subordinated ever more tightly to capitalist imperatives of profit – based upon increased, faster, and cheaper production. Agriculture has been transformed from a ‘closed loop system’, where soil fertility was renewed based upon locally-available resources (such as animal manure), to a through-flow system dependent upon external inputs.

This shift raised yields for a while, but at the cost of soil exhaustion and the accumulation of power and resources in the hands of agrochemical companies at the expense of the small farmer sector.

Weis suggests that we need to consider new ways of producing our food, which would also establish new forms of world development. 

We need to transform contemporary notions and practices of social change if we are to achieve genuine human development without destroying the planet.

This book by John Bellamy Foster deploys the concept of the metabolic rift to explain how capitalism is a fundamentally unsustainable economic system, subordinating nature ever more to its rhythms of competitive capital accumulation.

The greatest costs of environmental destruction – desertification, droughts, chemical contamination, flooding – are shouldered by the world’s poorest people who have already suffered from the impacts of colonialism and exploitative trade relations with more powerful states and economies.

Foster offers a vision of an alternative future where we meet all of humanity’s needs through caring for the planet’s environment.