The Tyranny of Experts, William Easterly
The Tyranny of Experts, William Easterly
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The Tyranny of Experts
Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor

Author: William Easterly

Narrator: Chris Ciulla

Unabridged: 15 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 03/16/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations.

In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our failing efforts to fight global poverty, and argues that the "expert approved" top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for decades of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, postcolonial dictators, and US and UK foreign policymakers seeking autocratic allies. Demonstrating how our traditional antipoverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving poverty, Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development. In this masterful work, Easterly reveals the fundamental errors inherent in our traditional approach and offers new principles for Western agencies and developing countries alike: principles that, because they are predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, have the power to end global poverty once and for all.

About William Easterly

William Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University and codirector of NYU's Development Research Institute. He is editor of the Aid Watch blog, associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and coeditor of the Journal of Development Economics. In addition, he is the author of The White Man's Burden, The Elusive Quest for Growth, three coedited books, and sixty-one articles in refereed economics journals. His work has been discussed in media outlets like the Lehrer Newshour, National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Economist, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 2008, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the world's Top 100 Public Intellectuals.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Daniel on June 29, 2017

I'm not without bias, but I'd like to think I came at this book with an open mind. I have a deep respect for hard-won expertise. But, like most academics, I also have a deep respect for modesty and the careful application of knowledge. This book doesn't argue against that kind of expertise, it argue......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on May 19, 2014

A disappointing book. Easterly's previous work The White Man's Burden was not my favourite book either, but it at least had enough thought provoking arguments and material. This time around his arguments are facile and repetitive. So yes we get that freedom is good and autocracy is bad; I'm not sure......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on January 02, 2016

The world is fairly well divided between the haves and have-nots, a pair of opposing regions that the author dubs "the west" and "the rest." Easterly argues that the rise in material wealth and means and roughly coincided with the gradual rise in individual liberty throughout the western world. in 19......more

Goodreads review by Willow on December 02, 2020

Confusingly presented arguments, he is clearly passionate, but rambling and blinded by the view from his own soapbox. Baffling neglect of any alternative approaches to development despite attempting to put forth his own. He seems to be speaking to the World Bank exclusively, which is fine as this do......more

Goodreads review by Pam on February 17, 2015

This is a tedious book to read, and I disagree with some of what Easterly argues. Despite his protestations otherwise, Easterly is a bit too much of a free-market advocate for me. However, he makes some very important points that make it worth reading. This quote near the end sort of sums it up: "We......more