Southern Exposure: International Development and the Global South in the Twenty-First Century

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Graduate Students as well
Review: Having just finished reading Southern-Exposure from cover to cover (but not in one sitting), I feel compelled to give you some positive-positive feedback! As one who now teaches only graduate seminars on international rural development, I wish I had read something like this years ago.

I began international development work for Michigan State University in 1960, and worked in Nigeria until after the Biafran war had started in 1967. Since then my wife and I have had numerous international assignments in many different countries -- some the same places in which you give small cases. Our longest periods of residential assignments have been in Nepal and then in India and Bhutan. But prior to that each of us has worked with rural people in the many different parts of the Global South -- in Africa, Asia, and Latin America -- for UNICEF, for FAO, for host governments, etc.

If only we could have read a book like this in 1960! Over the years, we have prepared dozens of professionals for international development work; and had hundreds in class. Your back cover says: "This book will become a widely adopted introductory text on development issues for undergraduate students..." It will also become widely used for graduate students! Actually, I have already assigned it for a book review by one of the students in my current on-line graduate seminar.

Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect
Review: I've been teaching "Third World Politics" for about 10 years and have yet to find the "perfect" textbook. "Southern Exposure" comes closest to meeting my expectations. I look forward to using the book and hope that my students will enjoy it as much as I did.