In producing what will probably be the definitive book on the changing role of the bank during the McNamara years, Mr. Ayres, a Fellow with the Overseas Development Council, interviewed some 300 officials and obtained access to a considerable number of internal documents of the bank which is, as he observes, 'not a noticeably open institution.' He describes internal and external political constraints on the World Bank as it developed specific poverty-oriented projects in rural and urban areas worldwide under Mr. McNamara, and speculates that, under its new president, A. W. Clausen... the World Bank is likely to become more conservative.
Carl Marcy
The New York Times Book Review