Just about everyone is 'for' development as an assumed 'good', yet few seem to have a concrete idea of what the term actually entails. Development offers a comprehensive and wide-ranging analysis of the various ways in which this important concept has been used in social and political analysis over the past 200 years.

"Much more than a useful guide, it is an elaborate work in political economy that succeeds in the skilful task of putting studies about development on an independent baseline, situating it at the heart of the 'new political economy'."
Political Studies Review

"Payne and Phillips make a robust case for (re)integrating analysis of development into the intellectual project of political economy, anchored in classical theory. In a world with increasingly evident limits, this comprehensive intervention is timely and critical, offering historical-theoretical support for a holistic approach to development."
Philip McMichael, Cornell University

"'Development' is the name we give to the third most important set of issues facing mankind, after nuclear proliferation and climate change. Anthony Payne and Nicola Phillips explain the evolution of the intellectual debate about the subject, starting with the eighteenth century classical political economists and continuing up to the present. Comprehensive and elegantly written, their study is about the best available between two covers."
Robert Wade, London School of Economics

"This is a timely, valuable and important book which clarifies significantly the often vaguely used concept of 'development' by placing it firmly in the contemporary global context and anchoring it authoritatively in a multi-disciplinary understanding of the interactions of political and economic processes."
Adrian Leftwich, University of York

"This book makes a refreshing contribution to the understanding of the development debates and, more importantly, it rehabilitates the concept by rooting it in the broader intellectual enterprise of political economy. A most welcome resource. A job well done!"
Diana Tussie , FLACSO, Argentina

Anthony Payne, University of Sheffield, UK.

Nicola Phillips, University of Manchester, UK.