Global Development: A Cold War History.

• Author: da Cruz, Jose de Arimateia
• Position: Book review

da Cruz, Jose A. () "Book Review: Global Development: A Cold War History by Sara Lorenzini," International Social Science Review: Vol. 96 : Iss. 1, Article 11.

Available at: https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol96/iss1/11

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Lorenzini, Sara. Global Development: A Cold War History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019. 296 pages. Hardcover. $29.95.

At the zenith of the Cold War, "development" was a useful catchphrase utilized to create allies and satellites in the ideological battle between the East, represented by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic and its satellite members and the West, represented by the United States and its allies. Sara Lorenzini, an associate professor of International History in the School of International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy, takes readers on a tour de force through the history of development as a Cold War global project from the late 1940s until the 1980s. Development, in the lexicon of the Cold War period, came to signify progress, modernity, and economic growth.

Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. Development was the panacea to all the world's newly independent nations in the aftermath of the decolonization process that led to the creation of the so-called Third World. The expression "Third World" was coined in 1952 by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy. Sauvy believed that the expression "Third World" would lead to a "collective awakening of the subject peoples previously ignored, exploited, and watched warily..." (p. 40). All Third World nations shared a Cold War political position of neutrality. While sharing this neutrality position, Third World countries were also able to play the two superpowers against each other for developmental aid in a game of chicken.

Lorenzini's Global Development makes three main points regarding developmental aid during the Cold War. First, the Cold War was fundamental in shaping the global aspirations and ideologies of development and modeling the institutional structures still...