da Cruz, José A.

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International Social Science Review 
Volume 96 Issue 1 Article 11 
Book Review: Global Development: A Cold War History by Sara 
Lorenzini 
José A. da Cruz 
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Recommended Citation 
da Cruz, José A. () "Book Review: Global Development: A Cold War History by Sara Lorenzini," International 
Social Science Review: Vol. 96 : Iss. 1 , Article 11. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol96/iss1/11 
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository. It has 
been accepted for inclusion in International Social Science Review by an authorized editor of Nighthawks Open 
Institutional Repository. 
Lorenzini, Sara. Global Development: A Cold War History. New Jersey: Princeton 
University Press, 2019. 296 pages. Hardcover. $29.95.  
     
At the zenith of the Cold War, “development” was a useful catchphrase utilized to create 
allies and satellites in the ideological battle between the East, represented by the Union of Soviet 
Socialist Republic and its satellite members and the West, represented by the United States and 
its allies. Sara Lorenzini, an associate professor of International History in the School of 
International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy, takes readers on a tour de force through 
the history of development as a Cold War global project from the late 1940s until the 1980s. 
Development, in the lexicon of the Cold War period, came to signify progress, modernity, and 
economic growth.  
Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for 
whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and 
minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. Development was 
the panacea to all the world’s newly independent nations in the aftermath of the decolonization 
process that led to the creation of the so-called Third World. The expression “Third World” was 
coined in 1952 by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy. Sauvy believed that the expression 
“Third World” would lead to a “collective awakening of the subject peoples previously ignored, 
exploited, and watched warily…” (p. 40). All Third World nations shared a Cold War political 
position of neutrality. While sharing this neutrality position, Third World countries were also 
able to play the two superpowers against each other for developmental aid in a game of chicken.  
     Lorenzini’s Global Development makes three main points regarding developmental aid 
during the Cold War. First, the Cold War was fundamental in shaping the global aspirations and 
ideologies of development and modeling the institutional structures still rule foreign aid today. 
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Those institutions were created after the Second World War when development became a 
profession and could provide solutions to eradicate problems such as malaria, organize school 
systems, teach new farming techniques, or deal with workplace litigation (p. 92). Governments, 
both in the East and West, created organizations to promote development in the Third World. 
The West had its Peace Corps, while the East had its own version, created in 1963 by the Council 
of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and known as the Freundschafts-
brigaden, made up of young East Germans, mostly highly skilled technicians (p. 86).   
     Second, Lorenzini argues that the role of the state was crucial, and that though 
development projects were articulated in global terms, as narratives to frame problems and 
provide solutions, they actually served national purposes. No period is more representative of the 
importance of the state as an engine of economic development than the 1980s known in Latin 
America as the “lost decade.” A period of high inflation, high unemployment, capital flight, 
deficit, and a negative trade balance. Third World nations were forced to swallow the bitter pill 
of the Washington Consensus with its structural adjustments programs (SAPs).  
     Third, development institutions tried to create a universal and homogenous concept of 
development but ultimately failed. This failure can be attributed to the United States adopting an 
approach centered on concepts of development and resorted to modernization theory (p. 60). 
Modernization theory was based on a set of cultural assumptions characteristic of the 
postcolonial transition: belief in industrial modernity and science as a common destiny; faith in 
capitalism supported by state regulation, and welfare provision to govern social conflicts. 
Furthermore, there was a universally valid and historically defined trajectory of progress that 
required the spread of Western liberal capitalist democracy (p. 60). During the “age of 
development” (1940-1970), economic growth became one with the national project, and 
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planning and state investments were key to promote prosperity and “take-off” among the newly 
independent nations of the Third World (p. 5).  
     In the aftermath of the failure of modernization theory to promote development in the 
Third World due to its conditionality and strings attached, enters China promoting a development 
alternative approach based on the notion of self-reliance (p. 107). Under this alternative model, 
China never attached conditions or asked for privileges; it tried to lighten the burden on recipient 
countries as much as possible; it helped recipient countries gradually achieve self-reliance; it 
strove to develop aid projects that required less investments and yielded faster results; it provided 
the best-quality equipment and materials of its own manufacture; it saw to it that the personnel of 
the recipient country fully mastered necessary techniques; and it did not allow its experts to 
make special demands or enjoy special amenities (p. 114). China becomes very active in Africa 
and Latin America promoting development aid as a tool to promoting the picture of China as a 
power capable of entering the donor’s club and deserving the prestige that went with it (p. 114). 
The Soviet Union was also very active during the period of developmental aid. However, the 
Soviet Union did not use the term “aid.” The Soviet Union did not give aid, because they were 
not imperialists repenting colonial legacies. They also rejected the distinction between donors 
and recipients, using the word “solidarity” (p. 81). The Soviet Union remained active as a 
development aid donor until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. With the introduction of 
perestroika (economic restructuring) and glasnost (political openness), the Soviet Union begins a 
process of disengagement with the South and substantial subsidies and military aid to the Third 
World begins to decline.  
     The implosion of the Soviet Union also led pundits and political commentators to assert 
that the “end of history” had arrived and that nations of the world had a chance to “shape a new 
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world” (p. 169). Rather than peaceful coexistence, however, the world of the twenty-first century 
is more complex and less secured. We are not “better angels” in the anarchical world of the post-
Cold War. Nations still struggle to provide their citizens with basic necessities. In conclusion, 
thirty years after the end of the Cold War, development, far from being a global project, is still 
closely bound to nationalist economic and political priorities of the industrialized world (p. 178). 
I recommend Lorenzini’s Global Development: A Cold War History to anyone interested in the 
history of development as well as to students of political science, international studies, economic 
geography, and economics.  
 
 
José de Arimatéia da Cruz  
Professor of International Relations and International Studies  
Georgia Southern University & United States Army War College 
Statesboro, Georgia & Carlisle, Pennsylvania 
 
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Book Review: Global Development: A Cold War History by Sara Lorenzini

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Book Review: Global Development: A Cold War History by Sara Lorenzini

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