Under Development: A journey without maps - Softcover

Smillie, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1788534123 ISBN 13: 9781788534123

Publisher: Practical Action Publishing, 2024

Synopsis

Armed with a university degree, the Boy Scout’s solemn oath and a snakebite kit which he left on the plane, Ian Smillie set out more than 50 years ago to confront ignorance, want and war. He taught at a remote school in Sierra Leone, was an aid administrator in Nigeria during the Biafran War and for a time he knew more about cement than anyone else in Bangladesh. In his travels as a writer, consultant and teacher, he had encounters with Graham Greene, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, the Queen and the ‘Butcher of Beijing’. He was instrumental in the campaign to halt blood diamonds, and he was the first witness at the war crimes trial of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. Smillie’s story moves from war-torn Bosnia, the Khyber Pass and a Paul McCartney quest in Moscow, to a just-before-9/11 meeting at the Bin Laden-obsessed CIA headquarters in Langley. This is a memoir about development: personal development, the development of ideas and understanding, rights and justice, war and peace, poverty and prosperity. It's about one of the greatest imperatives of our time: the drive to end global poverty and why, despite exaggerated claims to the contrary, it isn’t working. Bill Clinton called one of his books about international development ‘insightful’ and of another, The Economist said, ‘Read Smillie if you want something constructive.’

About this title

About the Author

Ian Smillie has lived and worked in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Bangladesh. He was a founder of the Canadian NGO, Inter Pares, Executive Director of CUSO and he was a leader in the campaign to end “blood diamonds.” He has worked as a development consultant with many Canadian, British, American and European organizations and he is the author of several books

Edition details

• Publisher: Practical Action Publishing
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1788534123
• ISBN 13: 9781788534123
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 298