Development and Social Change
A Global Perspective
- Philip McMichael - Cornell University, USA
- Heloise Weber - University of Queensland, Australia
Social Change and Modernization
Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective explains how development thinking and practice have shaped our world. It introduces students to four interconnected projects, and how their dynamics, contradictions and controversies have influenced development trajectories: colonialism, the development era, the neoliberal globalization project, and sustainable development. Authors Philip McMichael and Heloise Weber use case studies and examples to help describe a complex world in transition. Students are encouraged to see global development as a contested historical project. By showing how development stems from unequal power relationships between and among peoples and states, often with planet-threatening environmental outcomes, it enables readers to reflect on the possibilities for more just social, ecological and political relations.
Supplements
The Instructor Resource Site includes a test bank, tables and figures, and Lecture Spark. The resources on the site are geared toward increasing your effectiveness with this material and maximizing the potential for your students to learn.
"This book has a strong theoretical basis. It is focused on the developing world, so if you intend for the focus of your class to be international, it would be an excellent book to use."
"I like it because it has a strong narrative and is readable rather than trying to be a comprehensive textbook. It works best for upper-level students and even then you have to spend a bit of time covering concepts, but the students seem to get more out of it because most of the material is well
contextualized and emphasizes a few critical themes. Easy to combine with other materials."
"The book is very comprehensive, and uses multiple lenses to help students understand the multi-faceted aspects of development."
"Students find the text engaging and relevant."
"This text would be useful for a Social Change class. McMichael does a brilliant job of explaining to students how the modern world system changed during the 20th and 21st centuries. He provides a conceptual architecture to understand those changes, and he also provides empirical examples to illustrate concretely how social change in the world system happens."
"Students find it accessible and it is a good starting point to have discussions about colonialism and development..."
"Good book for challenging students conceptually- sets up a nice framework for development studies, globalization, and food governance."
New co-author Heloise Weber from the University of Queensland brings her expertise on international relations and the politics of development to the text.
Ch. 1 has been revised to emphasize contemporary challenges--rising material impoverishment, struggles for racial equality and justice, ecological despoliation--and to connect these challenges to Modernization Theory
Ch. 2 incorporates recent critical revisions of the Eurocentric framing of development and notions of progress and backwardness.
Ch. 3 contains new material on Third World challenges to the colonial division of labor.
Ch. 5 has been reorganized to include aspects of Ch. 4 from the previous edition (Globalizing Developments), and contains new case studies to illustrate core political shifts.
Ch. 6 includes updates to global counter-movements: environmentalism, feminism, food sovereignty.
Ch. 7 updates a number of crises in the development project, focusing on austerity policies, associated legitimacy questions, and geopolitical divisions as the American Century winds down.
Ch. 8 and Ch. 9 have been reoriented around development in the context of the current climate emergency, and "green" initiative in urban and rural areas.
Ch. 10 now evaluates a number of emerging sustainable development paradigms, and possibilities for building a coordinated, coherent and just future for all peoples across the world.
