The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
by William Easterly [more]
Preface: This book is a very difficult but worthwhile read. Easterly works here to answer an essential and very troubling question: "How could the well-intentioned West have invested over $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last fifty years and had so little effect?" His answers are provocative and yet quite actionable. In fact, his most fundamental belief is described as changing our mindset from "planning" to "searching." (see quote below) It's the best book I've yet read regarding the global issue of poverty.
A favorite quote: "A Planner thinks he already knows the answers; he thinks of poverty as a technical engineering problem that his answers will solve. A Searcher admits he doesn't know the answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional, and technological factors. A Searcer hopes to find answers to individual problems only by trial and error experimentation. A Planner believes outsiders know enough to impose solutions. A Searcher believes only insiders have enough knowledge to find solutions, and that most solutions must be homegrown."
