New Internationalist

Development: a guide to the ruins

Is ‘world development’ a phase of human history which has not run its course?

June 1992, Issue 232

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Other ways to explore New Internationalist: Sample our past issues • Browse by theme

The Big Story

A guide to the ruins
Wolfgang Sachs argues that 'world development' is a phase of human history which has now run its course.
The discovery of poverty
How 'the poor' were invented by the West... How the development idea was rescued from its first crisis... The vital difference between frugality and destitution.
Success!
Four people who benefit from grassroots initiatives that challenge the Western development model.
Technology as a Trojan horse
How the tools we use control us... The regimented world that lies behind each electric switch... The fragile magic that holds the Third World spellbound.
The economist's blind eye
The argument between Gandhi and Nehru... The invention of the market... Challenging the economic way of looking at life.
Behind THE FACTS
Why you should be wary of the statistics of world development – even those in the NI.
Whose environment?
The rise of the environment idea... How anti-growth became 'sustainable growth'... Why subsistence cultures have reason to fear the conservation movement.
One world against many worlds
The evaporation of the world's languages... The underdeveloped take the place of the savages... The threat of lifeboat ethics.
Development ended in Kuwait
The Gulf War as development's final curtain... Global apartheid... The South as a sea of crises which must be managed – militarily.
What then can we do?
We can agree that the Western development model has been damaging - but what does that mean we should do about it? This page is devoted to ideas for new thinking, reading and action we can explore if we accept the premise of this NI issue.

Regulars

Updates
Haiti coup, Brazil's outspoken environment secretary sacked, religious persecution in Bhutan.
Curiosities
Questions that have always intrigued you about the world will appear in this, your section, and be answered by other readers.
Endpiece
'I'm going to find out the year my mother died and start from there.' Emilia Laime tells Jenny Palmer of her plan to retrace her life.
Country profile
Thailand
Reviews
Recommended books, films and music.
Letters