This is a book with good ideas but it’s difficult to think that it is relevant in the current world political climate, by which I mean, while foreign assistance is being cut back across the board.

It is impossible to defend foreign aid as it has been practiced by the US and other powerful countries, which Easterly characterizes as “Development Right of Conquest” in this book.

Now we are in the midst of a kind of natural experiment to determine whether replacing imperfect foreign aid with no foreign aid at all will be better. Unfortunately, we will NOT be able to see it replaced with a better system as envisioned by Easterly.

Easterly states clearly what qualities he believes that effective foreign assistance should have.

"The central point of this book is that these three ideas of consent, self-determination, and equality made possible positive-sum gains from commerce between groups and individuals." (Kindle location 226)

That’s stated with admirable clarity, and this book is filled with that kind of to-the-point writing. Nevertheless, I’m sure that this book (like Easterly’s other books) will be criticized as difficult to read, especially by readers who have happily never had to read the jargon-heavy blather that passes for writing in official reports by aid organizations.

A weakness of this book, I thought, was that Easterly never really outlines what a better system might look like. We all agree that we can’t go on like we have. We all agree that the past system of paternalistic, we-know-better foreign assistance has to go. But what replaces it? Nothing? That’s what we’re trying now. It would be great to have some alternatives ready to go if no foreign assistance at all also turns out to have unfortunate consequences.

I was given a free electronic advance review copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley.