Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

Citation

McMichael, P., & Weber, H. (2024). Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective (8th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

The book has ten chapters, 328 pages by the publisher's count, with notes, references and an index. The contents show an opening chapter, Part I on the development project (Chapters 2–3) and Part II on the globalization project beginning at Chapter 4; the last three chapters on climate and sustainable development follow without a further part heading in the publisher's listing. The publisher's description presents it as treating development as a contested historical project that grows out of unequal power relations between peoples and states, often with environmentally damaging outcomes, and a library catalogue summary says it is organised around four linked projects: colonialism, the development era, the neoliberal globalization project and sustainable development. Chapters 1 and 2 are available as publisher samples.

Chapter 1: Development

The introduction questions what "development" means today. It argues that development must be understood as a "historically relational process", with colonial and postcolonial relations integrated into the present rather than treated as a past that countries leave behind. Sections cover "What Is the World Coming To?", "Development: History and Politics", "Development Theory" and "Social Change". The sample chapter ties the idea of development to the market as a vehicle of change and to the Eurocentric narrative of progress that it criticises.

Part I: The Development Project (Late 1940s to Early 1970s)

Chapter 2: Contextualizing the Development Project: Colonialism, Anticolonial Struggles, and Decolonization

This chapter rebuilds the history behind the post-1945 development project, treating it as inseparable from colonialism. Sections include "Colonialism", "Decolonization", "Postwar Decolonization and the Rise of the Third World", "Ingredients of the Development Project", "Framing the Development Project" and "Economic Nationalism". The sample chapter ends with key terms such as the colonial division of labor, import-substitution industrialization and economic nationalism, and a further-reading list.

Chapter 3: The Development Project: An International Framework in Global Context

The chapter asks what the development project was meant to achieve and how it was carried out as an international framework for national development. Sections cover "Remaking the International Division of Labor", "The Food Aid Regime" and "Remaking Third World Agricultures".

Part II: The Globalization Project (1980s to 2000s)

Chapters 4–5: Instituting the Globalization Project; Experiencing the Globalization Project: Processes and Implications

Chapter 4 covers neoclassical economics and neoliberalism, the debt crisis and structural adjustment programs, and geopolitics. Chapter 5 turns to the effects: the new global division of labor and outsourcing, labor-sourcing politics and migration, neoliberal development and extractivism, and agricultural globalization.

Chapters 6–7: The Globalization Project in Crisis; Global Re-orderings

Chapter 6 treats social crisis, legitimacy crisis, geopolitical transitions and deglobalization; the publisher's note adds nationalist protectionism, right-wing populism and debt-driven extractivism. Chapter 7, new to this edition, covers the legacies of the globalization project and "nascent development trajectories", which the note links to multipolarity, China's Belt and Road Initiative and green transitions.

Chapters 8–10: Development Climate, or The Nature of Development; Public and Local Green Initiatives; Toward Sustainable Development

Chapter 8 covers the politics of climate change, sustainable intensification proposals, renewable energy and an "ecosystem priority". Chapter 9 turns to public greening, urban initiatives, the circular economy, transition towns, the commons, rural initiatives and agroecology. Chapter 10 considers the ingredients of a coherent sustainable development project, what is appropriate to these times, and implementation.

Key Concepts

Chapter 1: Development

• Development as a historically relational process: development read together with colonial history.
• Development theory and social change: the market-centred view of improvement, and how social change is understood against it.

Part I: The Development Project

• Colonial division of labor: the pattern of production set by colonialism, a key term in Chapter 2.
• Economic nationalism and import-substitution industrialization: national strategies named in the Chapter 2 key terms.
• International division of labor and the food aid regime: the international framework of Chapter 3.

Part II: The Globalization Project

• Neoliberalism and structural adjustment programs: Chapter 4's account of how neoliberal development was organised.
• Extractivism: a section of Chapter 5.
• Deglobalization and multipolarity: themes of Chapters 6 and 7.

Chapters 8–10: Climate and sustainable development

• Sustainable intensification: the proposals examined in Chapter 8.
• Circular economy, transition towns, the commons, agroecology: initiatives surveyed in Chapter 9.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear historical frame. The four-projects structure gives students a chronological map, and Part I and Part II carry date ranges in their titles.
• Revised for current debates. The publisher's note on the eighth edition says Chapter 2 now incorporates critiques of Eurocentric framings of development, Chapter 7 is new and covers multipolarity, China's Belt and Road Initiative and green transitions, and the climate chapters examine net-zero policies and "carbon colonialism".
• Teaching aids. The sample chapters show end-of-chapter key terms, further-reading lists, text boxes and maps, and the contents list section headings that make chapters easy to navigate. A SAGE edge site is attached to the book.

Limitations

• A strong thesis. The book argues that development is an unequal, contested historical project, and the sample chapters adopt this position throughout; readers wanting a neutral survey of development economics or a toolkit of measurement methods should add other books.
• Not a theory handbook. Development theory has one section in Chapter 1; for a detailed critical survey of theories, Peet and Hartwick's book is the better partner.
• Dense, heavily noted chapters. Each of the two sample chapters runs to roughly twenty printed pages of closely argued text with extensive endnotes, which suits a seminar reading better than a quick first pass.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the course books, this is a thematic textbook with a distinct point of view. Paul Haslam, Jessica Schafer and Pierre Beaudet's Introduction to International Development is a broader multi-author introduction that covers competing theories, the organisations that shape development and development practice, and suits a first course. Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick's Theories of Development is a critical survey of the schools of thought and pairs with McMichael and Weber's historical narrative. Manfred Steger's Globalization: A Very Short Introduction gives a quick overview of globalization, and David Held and colleagues' Global Transformations is a systematic study of globalisation across politics, trade, finance, migration, culture and the environment, and is useful beside Part II. Peter Evans's Embedded Autonomy is a comparative study of how states shape industrial change in the computer industries of Brazil, India and South Korea, a case-based counterpart to the broad historical account here.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduate courses in development, globalization, political economy and environmental sociology. No specific prerequisite is stated; an introductory course in sociology, politics or geography is helpful.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapter 1, then Chapters 2 and 3 (the development project) and Chapters 4 and 5 (the globalization project) in order, since each builds on the previous one.
• Next: Chapter 6 on crisis and Chapter 7 on global re-orderings for current events.
• Final block: Chapters 8 to 10 together, as a unit on climate and sustainable development; they can be read alongside a course on environmental politics.

Use the key terms and further-reading lists in each chapter, and trace one commodity or country (for example, a food or a labor-exporting country) through the four projects to see how the chapters connect.