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This is a book dealing with the big questions about development: ? What is development? ? Can Third World countries ever hope to 'catch up'? ? Can a development path be found that avoids indefinite impoverishment on the one hand, and environmental destruction on the other? ? What is the relationship, if any, between economic growth and political development? ? Can a country that has failed hitherto create for itself a second chance? In their wide-ranging and insightful exploration, the authors take as their main examples two contrasting countries: Ghana, the first African colony to win independence, but which plunged into a downward spiral of economic decay; and Thailand, which was poorer than West Africa in the 1950s, but which went on to achieve decades of extraordinarily rapid economic growth, albeit at considerable environmental and human cost. Intensely readable, this thought-provoking and courageous book brings the big questions about development to a wide audience of college students and interested readers.