Easterly - The White Mans Burden

Praise for The White Mans Burden

Easterlys call for a more modest, results-oriented approach to aid is dead-on.

Los Angeles Times

In The White Mans Burden, Easterly marshals a wealth of fresh studies, original statistical analyses, his own anecdotal reporting, and historical precedents to buttress his argument that todays foreign-aid system doesnt work.... [It] is brilliant at diagnosing the failings of Western aid to underdeveloped lands.... The White Mans Burden is disturbing but essential reading for would-be Samaritansand a powerful call for reform.

BusinessWeek

Exciting... We should be grateful to Easterly for the wealth of material he has presented, thereby enriching the development literature.

Amartya Sen, Foreign Affairs

In The White Mans Burden, Mr. Easterly... focuses his keen analytic prowess on the utility of foreign aid.... Quite persuasive.

The Wall Street Journal

An ambitious new book... merciless and witty.

The Economist

White Mans Burden is a book with an attitudeit is both critical and cheeky... full of wry and sometimes outrageous humor.

The American Scholar

As an attack on the international antipoverty establishment, The White Mans Burden is difficult to refute.... [It] serves as a useful warning to the next generation of utopians.

Commentary

The White Mans Burden is almost a reference work of solutions and dilemmas, histories and prospects... written in... engaging, detail-rich style.... Fascinating.

San Francisco Chronicle

What makes this book valuable is its devastating detail.... Easterlys dissection of the interventionist impulse of the Planners is powerful.

The Washington Post

This is a splendid collection of information and assessment of one of the great issues of our time.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Easterly is as engaging and entertaining as he is cerebral, and his book crackles with combative, often cheeky, prose.... The White Mans Burden is one of the smartest books in a long time to consider both the potential, and the limitations, of outside intervention in the developing world.

The Weekly Standard

Out of these three books [recently written on world poverty] I found Easterlys by far the most stimulating.

Alan Beattie, Financial Times

This lively book by an anti-crusading crusader is designed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

The Washington Times

The White Mans Burden is a rare book.... Easterlys natural good humor and humilityas well as his solid narrative abilitiesmake it an inspirational work.

TCS Daily

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE WHITE MANS BURDEN

William Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. He was a senior research economist at the World Bank for over sixteen years. In addition to his academic work, he has written widely in recent years for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and Foreign Policy, among others. He is the author of the acclaimed book The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. He has worked in many areas of the developing world, most extensively in Africa, Latin America, and Russia. He lives in New York City.

The
WHITE MANS
BURDEN

WHY THE WESTS

EFFORTS TO AID THE REST

HAVE DONE SO MUCH ILL

AND SO LITTLE GOOD

WILLIAM EASTERLY

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2006

Published in Penguin Books 2007

Copyright William Easterly, 2006

All rights reserved

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Easterly, William Russell.

The white mans burden : why the Wests efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good / William Easterly.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-21812-9

1. Economic assistanceDeveloping countries. 2. PovertyPrevention. I. Title.

HC59.7.E22 2006

338.911713dc22

2005055516

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

Version_4

F OR R ACHEL , C ALEB, AND G RACE, AS ALWAYS

T O L IZZIE, WITH LOVE AND RESPECT

SNAPSHOT: AMARETCH

I AM DRIVING OUT OF Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to the countryside. An endless line of women and girls is marching in the opposite direction, into the city. They range in age from nine to fifty-nine. Each one is bent nearly double under a load of firewood. The heavy loads propel them forward almost at a trot. I think of slaves driven along by an invisible slave driver. They are carrying the firewood from miles outside of Addis Ababa, where there are eucalyptus forests, and across the denuded lands encircling the city. The women bring the wood to the main city market, where they will sell it for a couple of dollars. That will be it for their days income, as it takes all day for them to heft firewood into Addis and to walk back.

I later found that BBC News had posted a story about one of the firewood collectors. Amaretch, age ten, woke up at 3:00 a.m. to collect eucalyptus branches and leaves, then began the long and painful march into the city. Amaretch, whose name means beautiful one, is the youngest of four children in her family. She says: I dont want to have to carry wood all my life. But at the moment I have no choice because we are so poor. All of us children carry wood to help our mother and father buy food for us. I would prefer to be able to just go to school and not have to worry about getting money.