Development and social change - Philip McMichael

Situating "development" as a world-historical project, this text traces its contours across three historical periods: colonialism, the "development era," and the era of globalization. McMichael shows how the social transformations from "colonial subjects," through "national citizens," to "global consumers" have been inspired and managed through successive projects of development, ordering a changing and unequal world.

This fourth edition accentuates ecological themes, the gendering of development, and alternative development visions. Updating showcases the paradox of the "development" lifestyle, "ecological footprints," the "war on poverty," social reproduction issues, the "planet of slums" phenomenon, outsourcing, African re-colonization, the Latin rebellion against neo-liberalism, the rise of China and India, and the ever-changing policy face of the development establishment as it seeks to retain or renew its legitimacy at a time when development is perhaps facing its greatest challenge in the ecologically, socially, and politically destabilizing impacts of climate change.