Dictating Development: How Europe Shaped the Global Periphery

Extract

Dictating Development: How Europe Shaped the Global Periphery. By Jonathan Krieckhaus. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006. 244p. $27.96.

The purpose of this book is lofty: to understand the causes of economic development of the entire world. To be more specific, the study examines 91 countries outside Europe shaped by the colonial experience of the past 500 years. Krieckhaus looks at political science theories of ideology, bureaucracy, class, and education, as well as at economic theories of property rights and central policies. One of his first conclusions is that the settler counties of North America, the Cone of South America, and Australasia are far wealthier than the others. He goes on to examine the varying effects of different colonial powers, such as Portugal, Spain, France, or Britain, and whether the end of colonialism came in the nineteenth century or more recently.