<div>This is a book dealing with the big questions about development:<br><br> · What is development?<br><br> · Can Third World countries ever hope to 'catch up'?<br><br> · Can a development path be found that avoids indefinite impoverishment on the one hand, and environmental destruction on the other?<br><br> · What is the relationship, if any, between economic growth and political development?<br><br> · Can a country that has failed hitherto create for itself a second chance?<br><br> In their wide-ranging and insightful exploration, the authors take as their main examples two contrasting countries: Ghana, the first African colony to win independence, but which plunged into a downward spiral of economic decay; and Thailand, which was poorer than West Africa in the 1950s, but which went on to achieve decades of extraordinarily rapid economic growth, albeit at considerable environmental and human cost.<br><br> Intensely readable, this thought-provoking and courageous book brings the big questions about development to a wide audience of college students and interested readers.<br></div>