On January 20, 1949 US President Harry S. Truman officially opened the era of development. On that day, over one half of the people of the world were defined as "underdeveloped" and they have stayed that way ever since.

This book explains the origins of development and underdevelopment and shows how poorly we understand these two terms. It offers a new vision for development, demystifying the statistics that international organizations use to measure development and introducing the alternativ...