The Bottom Billion: Why The Poorest Countries Are Failing And What Can
Be Done About It

Product Description

In this elegant & impassioned synthesis from one of the world's leading experts on Africa & poverty economist Paul Collier writes persuasively that although nearly five billion of the world's people are beginning to climb from desperate poverty & to benefit from globalization's reach to developing countries there is a "bottom billion" of the world's poor whose countries largely immune to the forces of global economy are falling farther behind & are in danger of falling apart separating permanently & tragically from the rest of the world Collier identifies & explains the four traps that prevent the homelands of the world's billion poorest people from growing & receiving the benefits of globalization
- civil war the discovery & export of natural resources in otherwise unstable economies being landlocked & therefore unable to participate in the global economy without great cost & finally ineffective governance As he demonstrates that these billion people are quite likely in danger of being irretrievably left behind Collier argues that we cannot take a "headless heart" approach to these seemingly intractable problems; rather that we must harness our despair & our moral outrage at these inequities to a reasoned & thorough understanding of the complex & interconnected problems that the world's poorest people face