Colleagues:
At various times, list members have inquired about texts for undergraduate
classes on development and social change. I just received a copy of a new
title that should work well in the courses of PSN/WSN members:
Philip McMichael, DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL CHANGE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press/Sage Publications, 1996, ppb., xxiv +
310pp).
It is in the "Sociology for a New Century" series that already features
texts by authors such as Saskia Sassen, Charles Ragin, and Daniel Chirot.
McMichael (Rural & Development Sociology, Cornell University) has organized
the book around helping students "think about development as a transnational
project designed to integrate the world, and it helps them to see how this
project is currently undergoing dramatic revision via economic
globalization." He documents how the "development project" formed between
the late 1940s and early 1970s, and then began to unravel before being
resurrected by "the globalization project" in the 1980s. The book concludes
with reflections on rethinking understandings of development. Throughout the
book there are boxes that flesh out the argument in the main text with case
study material.
-- David Myhre
UC-San Diego