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< BACK Escape from Empire The Developing World's Journey through Heaven and Hell Alice H. Amsden
Acknowledgments
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Heaven Can't Wait Two American empires, one presiding after World War II, one presiding from 1980 to the present, gave rise to dramatically different growth rates in the developing world—a Golden Age and a Dark Age. Sample Chapter - Download PDF (136 KB)
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Where the Sun Never Sets, and Wages Never Rise Prewar colonial empires are lauded for their spread of civilization, but manufacturing experience was acquired by only a dozen late developers, mainly in Japan's orbit.
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Trading Earth for Heaven In the First American Empire, developing countries were allowed to follow their own development paths, as long as they stayed clear of communism.
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Angel Dust Foreign aid failed as a lever of growth because it was "tied" ... it was corrupt ... and it was ill conceived....
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Gift of the Gods The fathers of Third World independence understood some big things, about the "imperialism of free trade" and popular mass support for decent jobs. They devised original policies to promote the substitution of imports for domestic production.
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The Light of the Moon The experimental policies that were responsible for bringing most of the developing world into the modern age were grounded in "performance standards," a set of norms and institutions that increased the efficiency of state intervention.
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Dien Bien Phu: Knowledge Is Eternal The First American Empire perished in Vietnam because it lacked the information, know-how, and experimentation in which savvy developing countries specialized.
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To Hell in a Straw Basket War, oil, Japanese competition, and an expansionary Wall Street brought the Second American Empire to power, with its unshakable faith in free markets.
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America's Fatwas Ideas about development changed from innovative to ideological; a "Washington consensus" determined what developing countries could and couldn't do. Only Asia went its own way and took the world by surprise.
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The Devil Take the Hindmost Gaps in income between and within countries widened. Equal income distribution became recognized as one of the most important factors behind development, but laissez-faire was powerless to help.
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Great Balls of Fire Great Balls of Fire emerged—China, India, and other awakening giants. If the giants prosper, the Second American Empire will no longer enjoy absolute power. Can it adjust?
Sample Chapter - Download PDF (136 KB)
