This book examines the power of development to imagine new worlds and toconstantly reinvent itself as the solution to problems of national and globaldisorder. T... » 

This book examines the power of development to imagine new worlds and toconstantly reinvent itself as the solution to problems of national and globaldisorder. The common thread in these essays is the language and rhetoric of thedevelopment text. By conceptualizing development as a discourse thecontributors argue that development cannot simply be reduced to the outworkingof deeper economic logics and structures but has its own logic internalcoherence and effects.Combining abstract analyses with concrete global case studies The Power ofDevelopment discusses three main questions how and why does the language ofdevelopment change over time? What role does geography play in the language andpractices of development? And is it possible to imagine a world in whichdevelopment has no redeeming features or power? At the same time the bookrejects the postmodern conceit that all is language arguing instead that thetexts of development must be situated in the powerladen politicalandinstitutional context out of which they arise and to which they speak.Contributors Jonathan Crush Robert Shenton Michael Cowen T.G. McGee JaneParpart Doug Porter Fiona Mackenzie Timothy Mitchell Gavin Williams ArturoEscobar Kate Manzo Nanda Shrestha Michael Watts W.M. Adams and Ken Hewitt. «