Book Review

Neither author devotes major attention to the vast array of practical problems that beset the developing world and impair all efforts for progress. This was not their purpose. Neither book attempts to catalog the problems or discuss proposed solutions, other than economic regionalism. Taking a broader view than these books and their treatment of economic regionalism, one finds that the problems of material circumstances and human condition appear to be more extensive and more powerful than regionalism can solve.

The variety and seriousness of the problems faced by the developing countries explain the lack of success of regionalism and discourage the outlook for any theory, proposal, or combination thereof to achieve rapid economic development. Direct focus on the array of problems is discouraging, indeed. A short review here will help to indicate the limited ability of economic regionalism to have a major effect. The problems are well known, of course.

Asante and Carl refer to many of them. Development theory does not suffer from lack of information about problems, but from lack of effective solutions.