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

A brilliant, provocative, and entertaining book...Easterly's book is an insightful and thoughful critique of foreign aid. It is a must read for those involved in or interested in the topic.

A compelling examination (Economist )

His timely critique of development aid... provides no easy answers, which is [its] great virtue. (Salil Tripathi, The Independent )

A comprehensive exploration. (Edmund Conway, Daily Telegraph ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'A compelling examination' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

"A compelling examination" --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

"His timely critique of development aid... provides no easy answers, which is [its] great virtue." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

"A comprehensive exploration." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

A brilliant, provocative, and entertaining book...an insightful
and thoughtful critique of foreign aid.
--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

We are all aware of the extreme hunger and poverty that afflict the world's poor. We hear the facts, see the images on television, buy the T-shirt and are moved as individuals and governments to dig deep into our pockets. Yet what happens to all this aid? Why after 50 years and $2.3 trillion are there still children dying for lack of twelve cents medicine? Why are there so many people still living on less than $1 a day without clean water, food, sanitation, shelter, education or medicine? In The White Man's Burden William Easterly, acclaimed author and former economist at the World Bank, addresses these twin tragedies head on. While recognising the energy and compassion behind the campaign to make poverty history he argues urgently and powerfully that grand plans and good intentions are a part of the problem not the solution. Giving aid is not enough, we must ensure that it reaches the people who need it most and the only way to make this happens is through accountability and by learning from past experiences. Without claiming to have all the answers, William Easterly chastises the complacent and patronising attitude of the West that attempts to impose solutions from above. In this book, which is by turns angry, moving, irreverent but always rigorous, he calls on each and everyone of us to take responsibility, whether donors, aid workers or ordinary citizens, so that more aid reaches the people it is supposed to help, the mother who cannot feed her children, the little girl who has to collect firewood rather than go to school, the father who cannot work because he has been crippled by war. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU's Development Research Institute. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development and has worked in most areas of the developing world, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Russia. William Easterly spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank, an experience which he wrote about in the highly acclaimed The Elusive Quest for
Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics . He has also published 3 other co-edited books, and 46 refereed journal articles in the area of determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. His work has been featured in major media outlets such as the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, the New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week and the Financial Times. He is also editor of a number of top journals. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.