In the Pagan Science Reading Room

William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
New in paperback.
"...[S]ome readers will take away from [this book] the fundamental conclusion — even though [Easterly] doesn't draw it — that foreign aid just doesn't work; and that would be deeply incorrect. The fact is that many of the people you meet in any African village are alive because of foreign aid."
-- Nicholas D. Kristof, reviewing the book last October in The New York Review of Books
There are links to other reviews, and to debates and discussions, on Easterly's NYU website.
T.P.S.M. will have a longer discussion Monday. Top question on the list: Does anybody talk about capitalism and white supremacy anymore?

Tags: politics, law, policy, development, international aid, Bono, debt relief, capitalism, racism.