How do we try to make the world a better place, when the challenges of poverty, disease, war, conflict, and climate change continue to impact millions of lives? Global Development: The Basics is a lively and engaging introduction to the shifting landscape of global development, right from its origins, to present-day problems, and on to what the future for global development might look like.
Recognising global development as an economic, political, and social project, this book tackles a series of critical questions: asking ‘what’ development is and how it is measured, where and to whom it is assumed to happen, how its approaches are developed, and whose benefit do they serve? The book invites readers to consider the complexities and challenges of the concept of development, including its historical roots in colonialism, and the geopolitical power relations which continue to set much of the agenda. It investigates whose voices are included or silenced in dominant approaches to development, and the growing importance of ‘non-traditional’ development funding and approaches.
Covering key topics in the field, from economics and politics, through to gender and climate change, Global Development: The Basics is perfect for readers starting out in their understanding of global development.
1: Global development – making a difference? 2: Development through the ages 3: Understanding and measuring development 4: Globalisation, economics and development 5: Why we think development only happens ‘over there’ 6: Contesting the development landscape 7: Is there a future for global development?
Biography
Daniel Hammett is Senior Lecturer in political and development geography at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg. His work focuses on the intersections of citizenship, popular geopolitics, and global development and has been published in journals including Political Geography, International Development Planning Review, Progress in Human Geography, and Citizenship Studies.
Global Development: the basics unpacks the complex and changing language of international development, providing a comprehensive guide to students new to this important area of research and practice.
Professor Jo Sharp, School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
This is the best possible introductory text to global development today. Daniel Hammett has written a highly engaging and readable book, which provides a pacy and informed analysis of development history and current issues, encompassing political economy to decolonisation.
Professor Emma Mawdsley, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
