The most recommended books about the World Bank

The climate crisis, many of us now understand, may just end up crushing us. What can save us from that crushing?

Greater income equality, the former World Bank economist Herman Daly argued in this concise 1996 volume, has to be central to our solution. Daly, who passed away in 2022, pioneered the discipline of ecological economics.

Our planet, this University of Maryland professor emeritus believed, has “a limit to the total material production that the ecosystem can support.” In other words, we can’t afford to continue grasping for ever more.

We need to center ourselves instead around having enough, and that means, Daly concluded, moving toward adopting a “maximum personal income” since having 99 percent of a limited total product “go to only one person” would be “clearly unjust.”

Whereas I spent my time extracting secret information from corporations to potentially cause their demise, John Perkins was flying around the world trying to do the same thing to developing nations. A sobering tale of bad policies and bad leaders pushed on unsuspecting populations, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a nail-biting expose of what America is willing to do regardless of the collateral damage to other countries. 

Everyone wants to have more influence, be more persuasive, sell their ideas better and have greater impact. Richard Shell is one of the smartest people I have ever met on how influence works. I think I know a good bit about the topic and I learn something every time I talk with him. This is my favorite among his many books on influence – there are many and you cannot go wrong with any of them.  

This is a serious work of academic research that details the role of the World Bank's funding of development work in India. It is the most serious and well-researched work on the subject that I have read.

Many writers bring polemical views to their studies of international organizations and their impact on countries in the Global South. This book avoids these pitfalls and presents a serious and in-depth study of the subject.

I found it especially useful for my own work on the Bank's impact on water governance in India. 

I strongly recommend this book because it is clearly written, explains the methods of estimation, and provides an excellent overview of the extensive worldwide research on the returns to education based on earnings.

It certainly influenced me. It had a massive impact on World Bank lending policies in support of economic development in developing countries. It replaced the kinds of Bank physical capital investment policies such as those supporting dam construction, projects that included educating only for a few people on how to operate dams, with education sector-wide loans that support primary and junior secondary education of the labor force.

Some of these dams later washed out, and forests were destroyed in support of development. The book shows how the returns to investment in primary and secondary education are higher in developing countries where the labor force is often nearly illiterate than they are to investing in other higher levels… show more.

Barry recommends this book for Eric Toussaint's powerful analysis of the global financial system and its principal institutions (such as the IMF and World Bank) as a system of power relations maintaining the subordination and exploitation of the global south.

Barry found the exploration of possible solutions particularly valuable, ranging from various forms of resistance in poorer countries to the development of support and solidarity from social movements and struggles in rich countries.

Desirable policy changes are also discussed, especially debt cancellation in relation to the Third World Debt Crisis.

Most debts embody a legal contract specifying how and when the borrowed funds will be repaid and any circumstances in which the obligation can be amended.

Non-payment of most loan contracts end up before a judge whose decisions on repayment are guided by a national bankruptcy law. Debts of sovereign states differ.

Insolvent governments negotiate partial or delayed repayment with their various creditors. The starting point is always that the contracts must be honored.

Professor Lienau argues that there are instances in legal theory and historically in practice in which governments did not and should not have had to repay “illegitimate” debts. She calls for international recognition of a legally enforceable concept of “responsible” lending and borrowing.

Imagine how that might make creditors think twice about lending to oppressive regimes?

Since John Williamson’s Washington Consensus and the structural adjustment reforms imposed on developing nations as a condition for IMF and World Bank loans, understanding and criticizing neoliberal development economics is important for a balanced perspective on the international political economy. Chang and Grabel perform this task of an incisive yet graspable critique of neoliberal development theory. Importantly they go further and suggest alternative approaches and policies.

An American history buff, I’ve long been fascinated by the career of John McCloy, a kind of Zelig of the World War II and post-war era. Kai Bird is the co-author of the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, on which the recent movie is based.

Bird lays out the long and influential arc of McCloy’s career. Assistant Secretary of War in World War II, where he was involved in the decision to send Japanese-Americans in California to internment camps and counseled Harry Truman against using the atomic bomb. President of the World Bank.

US High Commissioner for Germany, where he oversaw the creation of the West German government. Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and the Ford Foundation. And one of the “wise men” who advised presidents from JFK to Ronald Reagan.

I came away from the book with a deeper understanding of the making of post-World War II America and… show more.

This is a personal peek at the work of a major firm by the “P” of KPF, one of the world’s leading skyscraper designers. Pedersen’s unpretentiousness and generosity of spirit are evident in the prose that accompanies the work. To my delight, the first building is 333 Wacker in Chicago, which, as a young art student living there, I saw being built. It became one of my favorites in a town legendary for its architecture. Buildings are personal to those who design them, and Pedersen tells intimate stories behind each of his 25 favorite designs. The surprise is that these are not precious little projects, but mostly very large, complex buildings for major clients, such as Samsung, World Bank, and Gannett. That said, the last of the projects featured is a jewel box of a house—the one he built for himself and his late wife of 60 years, to whom… show more.