Refaving because we are reading it this month for book club. To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about his arguments, but it is really interesting to read a not-so-academic critique of the international development industry by someone who:
a) Has academic standing (NYU proffessor)
b) Has experience writing for popular audiences (publishes in magazines as well as journals)
c) Has worked on the inside (World Bank economist for many years...admits to having been initially in favor of structural adjustment policies)

Quoted: Amazon.com: The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good: William Easterly: Books

High on my list of books to read soon... book club?

Quoted: Amazon.com: Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World: Books: Robert Neuwirth by Robert Neuwirth

Quoted: Amazon.com: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA: Books: Tim Weiner by Tim Weiner

Saw this at 3rd Place...looked interesting

Quoted: Amazon.com: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Vintage): Books: Rajiv Chandrasekaran by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

highly recommended by Washington post

Quoted: Amazon.com: Tree of Smoke: A Novel: Books: Denis Johnson by Denis Johnson

Another book club possibility...

Quoted: From The New Yorker A best-seller when it was first published, in India in 1988, this satiric novel chronicles the reluctant coming of age of a privileged young man who has just entered the prestigious Indian Administrative Service. Posted to a small town deep in the interior, he finds himself a foreigner in his own country, wary of cholera, defenseless against mosquitoes, and shocked by the sight of a tribal woman: "They exist, he shrieked silently, outside arty films about tribal exploitation and agrarian reform." In revolt, he sneaks out of meetings, pretends to be the son of Antarctic explorers, and smokes copious amounts of pot. He's an avatar of the Western slacker: overeducated, bored, plagued with doubts, and incapable of action. Still, Chatterjee's story is uniquely Indian, as he plumbs his hero's fear of being "just one more urban Indian bewitched by America's hard sell in the Third World."

Possibility for book club

Quoted: From The New Yorker Mishra, a Hindu, has been accused in his native India of "pandering to white pro-Muslim audiences in the West"—a notion that, he points out, was "optimistic" even before September 11th. In this acute survey of South and Central Asia (including Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Tibet), he reports on how countries are facing the crisis of modernization, hobbled by political corruption, poverty, and the abiding hatred of one tribe for another.

Possibility for book club

Quoted: College-aged Guène was raised by Algerian immigrant parents in a Parisian housing project; in her debut novel, a French bestseller, 15-year-old Doria and her illiterate ...

Sumit recommended the movie of this book to me today. I have put a request through my library to get it. Has anyone else seen it or seen other movies on Afghanistan that they can recommend?

Quoted: Amazon.com: Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil: Books: Deborah Rodriguez,Kristin Ohlson by Deborah Rodriguez,Kristin Ohlson