An incisive look at many of the new ideas around development. Critical, original and accessible.

Ben Oakley, University of Bristol

Raff Carmen is one of very few challenging and ground-breaking thinkers who can change the way in which we perceive and practise development. In this comprehensive book, he succeeds in interweaving a vast panorama of theories and methodologies with practical case studies to bring complex issues dramatically to life... He convinces us that alternative approaches have worked and can work in the future

David Archer, Head of International Education, ACTIONAID

Carmen's incisive arguments are thought-provoking and refreshing in their intellectual appeal and pragmatic development prescriptions. His whole analysis is based on two pristine principles: People cannot be put first: development is people. People are not the problem: they are the solution. A readable book for the development policy and programme practitioners, social activists and Third World commentators alike.

P. Jegadish Gandhi, Vellore Institute of Development Studies, India

A refreshing and welcome addition to the discourse on South World development. In an era where socio-economic disparities between South and North are increasing, and the mass media give consumers the world according to McCoke, voices like Carmen's are vitally important. A comprehensive analysis of both the barriers to and hopes for development in the South. Highly recommended for people interested in people-centred economics.

Professor Farah M. Shroff, University of Toronto

The methods and ideas forcefully expounded by Raff Carmen are of urgent relevance... an explosive critique of dominant top-down and ethnocentric development ideology

Thierry Verhelst, Network Cultures, author of No Life without Roots

In his lucid, original and challenging style, Raff Carmen strips away the comfortable myths of world development and replaces them with a compelling call to humanize the landscape.

Wendy Harcourt, Society for International Development