Bottom Billion v. White Man's Burden

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Turdacious
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Bottom Billion v. White Man's Burden

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Paul Collier's Bottom Billion may be the best development book I've ever read. Not too heavy on the technical, and talks about why western development aid tends to fail in the poorest countries in the world. Also, it's short enough to be read at an afternoon.

William Easterly's White Man's Burden is along the same lines, and also received great reviews, and has a lot of good information. Unfortunately there is way too much editorializing, and it reads like a business self help book. Some chapters were very good, but some, like his chapter on AIDS was too simplistic.
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule