If interested, please email Catherine Locke, and give (i) your choice, (ii) your affiliation, (iii) a land address and (iv) a fax number.

Reviews are about 1,000 words in length, and summarize the content and argument of books. Reviewers keep the book. Books are only sent to genuine reviewers: a review is expected!

Click to download full review guidelines and style guide and some sample book reviews (PDF format).
 

Development Books for Review:

Relational Accountability: Complexities of Structural Injustice
Joy Moncrieffe
Zed, 2011        pp177, 6 chapters
Moncrieffe argues that traditional interpretations of accountability obscure relationships, power dynamics, structures and processes. The relational view, in contrast, seeks to understand the ways in which people perform in their roles as social actors and how the quality of relationships influences the character of accountability.

Progressive Fiscal Policy in India
Ed. Praveen Jha
Sage, 2011      pp.440, 17 chapters
The book argues for the pursuance of an active fiscal policy promoting growth as well as greater equity in distribution, which in turn may lead to an accelerated rate of poverty reduction and a desired pace of human development.

The Political Economy of Development: the World Bank, Neoliberalism and development research
Eds. Kate Bayliss, Ben Fine and Elisa Van Waeyenberge
Pluto Press, 2011.       Pp.283, 11 chapters
The book brings together academics that specialise in different subject areas of development and reviews their findings in the context of the World Bank as a knowledge bank, policy maker and financial institution.

Africa’s Odious Debts: how foreign loans and capital flight bled a continent
Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce
Zed books, 2011.         Pp.113, 5 chapters
This book explodes the myth that Africa is a drain on the West’s finances, revealing that the continent is actually a net creditor to the rest of the world. Revealing the intimate links between foreign loans and capital flight.

Congo Masquerade: the political culture of aid inefficiency and reform failure
Theodore Trefon
Zed books, 2011          pp.131, 6 chapters
Congo Masquerade is about mismanagement, hypocrisy and powerlessness in what has proved to be one of Africa’s most troublesome and volatile states. Evaluating the imported templates of reforms pieced together to introduce democracy and improve the well-being of the Congolese.

Women, Gender and Rural Development in China
Eds. Tamara Jacka and sally Sargeson
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011           pp.229, 9 chapters
A wide reaching and multidisciplinary book that questions whether gender politics are changing in response to the development of China’s countryside, and explores how gender politics inform and are reproduced or reconfigured in the languages, knowledge, processes and practices of development in rural China.

War & Conflict in Africa
Paul D. Williams
Polity Press, 2011       pp.246, 11 chapters
Offers the first comparative assessment of more than three hundred armed conflicts which took place in Africa between 1990 and 2009. Examining the political contexts in which these wars occurred, exploring the key ingredients that provoked them and the major international responses undertaken to deliver lasting peace.

Postcolonial Economies
Eds. Jane Pollard, Cheryl Mcewan and Alex Huges
Zed Books, 2011.        Pp.232, 9 chapters
Provides a space for nascent debates about postcolonialism and its treatment of the economic across a range of disciplines, including Geography, Economics, Development Studies, History and Women’s Studies.

Writings on War
Carl Schmitt (translated and edited by Timothy Nunan)
Polity press, 2011.      Pp.232, 15 chapters
Essential reading for those seeking to understand the work of Carl Schmitt, the history of international law and the international system, and interwar European history.

Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities
Eds: Andrea Cornwall, Jerker Edström and Alan Greig
Zed books, 2011          pp.235, 17 chapters
Contributors challenge the neglect of the structural dimensions of patriarchal power relations in current development policy and practice. Calling for renewed engagement in efforts to challenge and change stereotypes of men, dismantle structural barriers to gender equality and to build new alliances with women’s movements.

The Women, Gender & Development Reader (Second Edition, Fully Revised and Updated)
Eds: Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Nan Wiegersma and Laurie Nisonoff
Zed Books, 2011.        Pp.438, 44 chapters
The definitive volume of literature dedicated to women in development. Using a multidisciplinary approach the contributors expertly present the impact of social, political and economic change; reviewing issues of migration, persistent structural discrimination, global recession and climate change.

Child Migration in Africa
Iman Hashim and Dorte Thorsen
Zed books 2011.          pp150, 6 chapters
Insights into the complexities of children’s migration in West Africa based on ethnographic research in sending and destination communities.

Managing the Undesirables
Michel Agier
Polity Press, 2011.      Pp.268, 12 chapters
Drawing on 7 years of experience in refugee camps, mostly in Africa, analyses the ambiguity between humanitarian impetus and actions to control; Engages with the challenge of transforming camps of refugees into towns of political subjects.

The Realist Case for Global Reform
William E Scheuerman
Polity Press, 2011       pp219, 6 chapters
A challenge to conventional wisdom that focuses on the neglected tradition of Progressive Realism and its potential to contribute to contemporary debates about international policymaking and world government.

Building Trust in Government: Innovations in Governance Reform in Asia
Eds: G. Shabbir Cheema and Vesselin Popovski
United Nations University, 2010.        Pp.239, 11 chapters.
This book seeks to answer many of the questions raised in reference to means of strengthening rust in government within the Asia-Pacific region. The contributors provide perspectives on the causes of the decline in trust and governance innovations and practices that have played an important role in strengthening trust once it has faltered.

Challenging Capacity Building: Comparative Perspectives
Eds: Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010      pp269, 12 chapters
Interrogates central ideas and practices of capacity building and how it can challenge disadvantage and inequality: part 1 on rhetoric and practice and part 2 on practical challenges

Two books (for review together) on Activism and Civil Society in South Asia, edited by David Gellner:

Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia
Ed. David N. Gellner
Sage, 2009      pp367, 11 chapters
Volume 2 of Sage’s Governance, Conflict and Civic Action Series; Case studies of different kinds of ethnic (‘communal’) activism, namely hindu nationalism, dalit movements, janajati activism and transnational connections.

Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia
Ed. David N Gellner     pp291, 10 chapters
Volume 3 of Sage’s Governance, Conflict and Civic Action Series; Case studies of how activists in South Asia mediate between different spheres: the political, the legal, the economic, the local and the international.

Zimbabwe’s Exodus: Crisis, Migration, Survival
Ed. Jonathon Crush and Daniel Tevera
SAMP, 2010     pp.416, 17 chapters
Explores the relationship between Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis and migration as a survival strategy; personal stories of Zimbabwean diaspora.

Cosmopolitanism: Ideals and Realities
David Heald
Polity Press, 2010       pp.306, 7 chapters
Sets out the case for a cosmopolitan approach to contemporary global politics; sets out a systemic theory of cosmopolitanism and uses it to address the most pressing issues of our time.

Social Formation in Dhaka, 1985-2005: A Longitudinal Study of Society in a Third World Megacity
Kamal Siddiqui et al
Ashgate, 2010 pp.406, 12 chapters
A holistic analysis of urbanisation that connects the poor with the non-poor and delineates the change agents of the city; the first longitudinal study of social structure of any Third World megacity.

Undoing Privilege: Unearned Advantage in a Divided World
Bob Pease
Zed Books 2010          pp.226, 9 chapters
Explores the main sites of privilege (the other side of oppression) from Western dominance, class elitism, and white and patriarchal privilege to less-examined sites of heterosexual and able-bodied privilege and strategies to undo them.

Resource and Environmental Economics: Modern Issues and Applications
Clement A Tisdell
World Scientific Publishing 2010        pp.491, 13 chapters
Deals with the essential principles of resource and environmental economics, provides applications to contemporary issues in this field and outlines and assesses policies being used or proposed for managing resources.

The truth about trade: the real impact of liberalization
Clive George
Zed 2010         pp.154, 12 chapters
A critical analysis of trade liberalization and implications for development, presenting a more realistic view of international trade and its potential role in a more equitable and sustainable world.