Abstract

Thinking back, from an historical perspective, into the concept of development and into the ways in which it has been appropriated over space and time by different actors (politicians, economists, practitioners, activists etc.) seems today particularly timing for two reasons. On the one hand, the global economic crisis has forced a reassessment of the triumphalism that followed the end of the Cold War; on the other, the anxieties linked to the irreversibility of climate change and the growing concerns on sustainability call for a deeper awareness of what has been done in the past in order to better outline sound approaches and visions for the future. Indeed, development – as demonstrated by two recently published volumes, Sara Lorenzini’s “Una strana guerra fredda. Lo sviluppo e le relazioni Nord-Sudµ and Corinna Unger’s “International Developmentµ. A Postwar History – can be used as a useful lens to dig into the mechanisms that have shaped our societies and still affect them.