Product Description

Global poverty, Paul Collier points out, is actually falling quite rapidly for about eighty percent of the world. The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty.
In The Bottom Billion, Collier contends that these fifty failed states pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines a much needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards. A struggle rages within each of these nation between reformers and corrupt leaders--and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that snare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work against these traps, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, and new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions.
As former director of research for the World Bank and current Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, Paul Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16386 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review

"The best book on international affairs so far this year."--Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times
"This slip of a book is set to become a classic of the 'how to help the world's poorest' genre. Crammed with statistical nuggets and common sense, his book should be compulsory reading for anyone embroiled in the hitherto thankless business of trying to pull people out of the pit of poverty where the 'bottom billion' of the world's population of 6.6 billion seem irredeemably stuck."--The Economist
"Terrifically readable."--Time.com
"If Sachs seems too saintly and Easterly too cynical, then Collier is the authentic old Africa hand: he knows the terrain and has a keen ear. As Collier rightly says, it is time to dispense with the false dichotomies that bedevil the current debate on Africa. If you've ever found yourself on one side or the other of those arguments - and who hasn't? - then you simply must read this book."--Niall Ferguson, The New York Times Book Review
"Rich in both analysis and recommendations...Read this book. You will learn much you do not know. It will also change the way you look at the tragedy of persistent poverty in a world of plenty."--Financial Times
"Workable development ideas are hard to find, but Professor Collier may have identified the next frontier for positive change."--Tyler Cowen, The New York Times
"Provides a penetrating reassessment of why vast populations remain trapped in poverty, despite endless debate over foreign aid policy among wealthy countries and institutions."--Barbara McDougall, Jury Chair, The Lionel Gelber Prize, and Canada's Former Secretary of State for External Affairs
"An acclaimed bestseller in 2007, and already a set text in development courses worldwide, Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion has far from exhausted its potential to change the way we think about, teach about, and legislate about global poverty...Its policy recommendations, many of which focus on empowering domestic actors, including through voluntary international standards to serve as rallying cries for reform movements, are not only pragmatic but also addressed squarely to the audience that matters most: the G8. It does not hurt its crossover appeal that The Bottom Billon is a model of good writing for the public understanding of social science."--Ethics & International Affairs (publication of the Carnegie Council)
"One of the most important books on world poverty in a very long time."--Richard John Neuhaus, founder of First Things Magazine
"Excellent...his key recommendations are right on the mark, and his message should resonate in the development discourse for years to come...Highly recommended."--CHOICE
"One of the most engaging and provocative books on development to appear in a long time. His analyses and proposals--delivered, by the way, in prose unusually good for an author who happens to be an economist--are sound and should be embraced by people who care and can do something about the poorest of the world." --Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico and director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
"This is an arresting, provocative book, written by an expert in plain English. If you care about the fate of the poorest people in the world, and want to understand what can be done to help them, read it. If you don't care, read it anyway."--Tim Harford, Financial Times columnist and author of The Undercover Economist
"Paul Collier's book is of great importance. He has shown clearly what is happening to the poorest billion in the world, why it is happening and what can be done to open up greater opportunities for them in a world of increasing wealth. His ideas should be at the centre of the policy debate."-Sir Nicholas Stern, Professor at the London School of Economics, Former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and author of The Stern Report on Climate Change
"This is a path-breaking work providing penetrating insights into the largely unexplored borderland between economics and politics."--George Soros
"A persuasive and important challenge to current thinking on development."--Larry Summers
"A lucid and hard-nosed alternative view of the age-old question of development...will no doubt influence and reinvigorate the debate on development for years to come."--International Affairs
"With compassion annealed by smarts; irony softened by warmth; and a commitment to penetrate to the core of things, Collier picks up the tools of economics and forthrightly applies them to the politics and economics of the developing world. Accessible and refreshing, this books provides a blunt and no-nonsense look at a major issue of our times."--Robert H. Bates, Eaton Professor of the Science of Politics, Harvard University
"Professor Collier has a superb and provoking synthesis of the forces and circumstances trapping a billion people in desperate conditions and poverty. For those of us who feel called to serve in the world's most crushing situations, Paul's book is stark affirmation that being there matters. And that it is time for the world community to act in coherent and different ways to bring essential change and hope for the generations to come."--David Young, Senior Vice President, Integrated Ministries and Strategy, World Vision International

About the Author
Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. Former director of Development Research at the World Bank and advisor to the British government's Commission on Africa, he is one of the world's leading experts on African economies, and is the author of Breaking the Conflict Trap, among other books.

Customer Reviews

Poorest billion
What do we do with them?

Prof. Collier of Oxford University, has done years of research, publishing, conferences, on this topic. Yet, one-size- fit-all solution never came up.

With civil war, ethnic conflict, fighting for natural resources, bad governance, bad neighbors, military power, aids from G8, law, trade policy issues, one would think that the solution is not possible.

What is needed is to have a strong and capable leadership at the top. With a strong leader, the country can change.

We need to focus on a group of countries at a time. G8 countries are drilling oil, gas, and minerals in Africa now. China recently sent 500,000 to Africa to build highway, bridges, telephone systems, etc.
It is possible to accomplish.

But this book does not include any of the African success stories.
Everyone knows the problem. But the solution is the most important for the bottom billions.

Excellent Book Should Be Read By Everyone Concerned with Poverty
Collier is a serious scholar in the world of development and here he has written a very important book. Here is the basic argument - while it sucks to be poor in countries like India, India is heading for relative prosperity. Where is really, really sucks to be poor is in a number of countries, concentrated in Africa where there is little hope of breaking out of a cycle of severe poverty. Collier pinpoints four ways in which these countries stay at the bottom - (1) they are racked by civil wars; (2) they're rich in a specific natural resource which stifles economic group in other areas; (3) they are surrounded by awful neighbors; and/or (4) they are a small country which is consistently horrifically governed. Collier proposes a number of concrete steps to deal with some of these problems, steps which I find to be realistic if perhaps politically unlikely at times. For example, Collier is totally in support of military intervention, of course he thinks there is a right way and wrong way to do it, but still, you're not hearing Jeff Sachs talk about sending in guns to cure poverty and with the disaster that has been the Iraq war, I think it will be a long time before the developed world is interested in dangerous humanitarian missions.

This is the book of a man who has spent a long time in world of bureaucracies whose mandate is to fight poverty, and some of Collier's ideas are a bit gun-ho in reaction to what he rightly thinks is a lack of will power from the developed world. I don't think all of his ideas are good ones, and many of them I think are unlikely given the developed world's current lack of commitment to fighting poverty, but if you have any interest in development and poverty reduction you have to read this book.

Will stimulate your thinking

I love books like this. I am not a development expert not involved in international business nor government. Just a average middle class guy who tries to think beyond the bounds of my little world.

Can't argue whether anything he put on these pages is wrong or right. It's engaging writing and I often found myself pausing to ponder some point Collier makes. All-in-all, a great read.

One additional note: The first chapter is very wonkish...lots of statistics and figures. It may put you off and keep you from reading further....if so just skip to Chapter 3. You can still get the gist of Collier's argument.