This important book reflects the exciting developments in the economic understanding of the Third World. Jeffrey Williamson argues that Third World analysts ignore economic history at their peril, and uses it to speak to the issues of the 1990s with fresh eloquence. Economic knowledge of Third World development has undergone a transformation since the mid 1970s. Improvements in data, new theory and a revolution in policy, have, as a result, produced a dramatic evolution in development thinking. In this collection Professor Williamson presents a discussion of accumulation, inequality and growth from a historical perspective, but the agenda in each essay is explicitly moulded by the contemporary debate.The book will appeal to economic historians, development analysts and practitioners concerned with economic growth in the Third World.