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Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
by Michael Goldman
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Yale University Press (2006-09-06)
ISBN: 0300119747
EAN: 9780300119749
Dewy Decimal #: 332.1532
Paperback: 384 pages
SKU: 40-0FEC-FLY0
Condition: New
Comments: Brand new softcover. Gift quality. Expedited shipping is available.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Why is the World Bank so successful? How has it gained power even at moments in history when it seemed likely to fall? This pathbreaking book is the first close examination of the inner workings of the Bank, the foundations of its achievements, its propensity for intensifying the problems it intends to cure, and its remarkable ability to tame criticism and extend its own reach. Michael Goldman takes us inside World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., and then to Bank project sites around the globe. He explains how projects funded by the Bank really work and why community activists struggle against the World Bank and its brand of development. Goldman looks at recent ventures in areas such as the environment, human rights, and good governance and reveals how--despite its poor track record--the World Bank has acquired greater authority and global power than ever before. The book sheds new light on the World Bank's role in increasing global inequalities and considers why it has become the central target for anti-globalization movements worldwide. For anyone concerned about globalization and social justice, "Imperial Nature is" essential reading.
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Customer Reviews
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A description and critique of 'World Bank' practice
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-07-11
This book provides a history of the 'World Bank' and a description and critique of its major operating practices. According to Goldman the 'World Bank's operations often fail to achieve their stated goals, and may do more harm than good.
Goldman analyzes the way the agenda of the major fund- providers for the World Bank, the leading industrial states impinges upon the operation of the 'Bank'. He describes the World Bank philosophy which places emphasis on green environentalism and capitalist neo- liberalism. He shows how the World Bank's institutions produce the information and knowledge which often leads their policies in the wrong direction. He goes into great detail in describing and analyzing a World Bank water project in Laos which causes more harm than good.
Is this overall a fair critique? Does it do justice to the full variety of the work, the 'World Bank' has done in the more than sixty years since its inception?
I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to answer.
But that the World Bank does have in many areas a good need for soul- searching is made extremely clear in this fine book.
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Good Introduction to the Bank
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-06-01
Michael Goldman's Imperial Nature is a wonderful introduction to the methods, practices and history of the World Bank. It is well written and very easy to read and comprehend. It is arranged logically and most questions that a reader with little prior knowledge of the bank would have are answered early on. The book uses both general history and contemporary examples to explore the evolution of the bank's purpose and methodology. However Goldman tends to make generalizations without expounding on examples he casually mentions, or after providing only one detailed example.
Imperial Nature is excellent at explaining how the bank creates and controls information, exploring an area of power often overlooked. Imperial Nature documents how the World Bank, ostensibly a "development" organization can in fact further impoverish a borrowing nation, leave many of its people destitute and then manipulate the data so that it appears to have in fact accomplished something good. Goldman's exploration of the process by which the Bank produces information and regulates what information is published, both before a project is begun and after it is finished, is the best feature of this book.
Despite the title environmental concerns seem rather peripheral. The book is a promotion of social justice and an exploration of the bank's imperialist control over nations and peoples, but environmental effects are rarely mentioned, excepting how they directly affect native peoples. Overall the book is a good and easy to understand overview of the World Bank in the world today, but it would not provide a great deal of information to someone with prior knowledge of the bank.
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Solid framework of World Bank
Rating (4)
Date: 2006-05-31
Michael Goldman's Imperial Nature provides a concrete basis for the understanding of the World Bank's infrastructure and policies. Not only does Goldman explain how the World Bank functions, but he gives specific examples of projects from around the world such as the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. Goldman attempts to explain how the bank achieves its powerful status and remains a dominant structure worldwide. A passage reads, "From this perspective, the World Bank functions by borrowing capital from a global bond market (that it helped to create), lending it to governments that are deemed in need, and then requiring these governments to spend a substantial percentage of these loans to procure goods and services from firms of the Big Five creditor countries" (Goldman 155). Previously unaware of the World Bank's actual workings, passages like these opened our eyes to a somewhat startling power relationship the World Bank attains with underdeveloped nations. Although the World Bank is portrayed as a dominant "bully" in a way, they are a money lending institution similar to other businesses around the globe.
For somebody who has hardly any previous knowledge regarding the World Bank and its operations, this book will give you the basic understanding of how it works. For somebody who understands the inner-workings of the dominant World Bank, this book might seem monotonous and vaguely informative. But overall, the book is fairly entertaining and revealing.
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A Different Angle
Rating (4)
Date: 2006-05-31
Imperial Nature by Michael Goldman provides a good source of information about the World Bank. This book doesn't require the reader to have prior knowledge about the World Bank and it is not overwhelming in terms of how much information is presented. It presents the history of the Bank and allows the reader to understand its structure and functions. Goldman's goal was to show the negative aspects of the World Bank's influence in the world. He is a valid candidate to write about this subject because he made observations from within the World Bank headquarters. Goldman gave both views of the development projects by presenting interviews with World Bank officials and the people in developing countries. He presented the reader objective information but it made us more skeptical of the institution and its motives.
In the beginning, the author described broad topics such as how the World Bank functions. This made it easier to understand the specific cases that were presented later in the book such as the case study on the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. Some issues addressed by Goldman include water privatization. This topic is a good example of the classic tragedy of the commons and how as a common pool resource it needs to be regulated.
The book made us question who is benefiting from the projects. It described how the World Bank treats the people in developing countries with a neocolonial attitude since most of the lesser-developed countries are former colonies. We considered the question of whether the World Bank should continue to exist with the same power. In our opinion, the World Bank should consult with the people who will be affected by development projects. This will provide a system of checks and balances that is necessary to prevent corruption. Overall, we recommend this book because it succeeded in making us think differently about the Bank.
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What Happens Next?
Rating  (3)
Date: 2006-05-31
Michael Goldman's Imperial Nature: The World bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization takes the stance of the activists that frequently protest at world bank meetings claiming the bank's development projects do more ham than good in developing countries. The book offers more insight into the World Bank than is normally available to such anti-bank activists, however, because Goldman was able to spend a significant amount of time within the bank itself. Goldman gives a unique historical overview of how the bank came to be as it is, as well as specific case studies that provide a detailed understanding of the inner-workings of the bank that are necessary to critique it. Perhaps the most useful - and surprising - part of this critique is Goldman's description of how the bank acts as a knowledge-producer. He argues that officials at the bank commission reports that spin results of development projects to favor the image of the bank. Goldman also argues that in order to quell protests that the bank's projects were harmful to people living in developing countries, the bank absorbed NGOs, scientists, and other protestors into itself. The result is a bank with the same problems, and less credible people willing to speak out against it. While Michael Goldman has certainly been successful in critiquing the policies and procedures of the World Bank, he has not taken the next step by proposing an alternative. Without suggestion of how an ideal institution would function, to whom such an institution would be held accountable, or examples of `good development', Michael Goldman's book will likely not have any more effect than the protestors at World Bank meetings.
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