US aid interventions have greatly advantaged some countries in their quest for development, but not others. The extensive development assistance, technology transfers and market access that the United States government granted Taiwan and South Korea in their development and the aid recently given Costa Rica were important factors in their development successes. On the other hand, the inappropriate policies of the US in Vietnam in the fifties, El Salvador in the eighties and Nicaragua in the nineties, programmed these interventions to economic as well as political failure.

Autorentext

NAN WIEGERSMA is a Professor of Economics at Fitchburg State College. She has published numerous articles about land tenure, gender and development in journals and a previous book Vietnam: Peasant Land, Peasant Revolution. She was a Fullbright Fellow in Nicaragua in 1991, studying women's work in export processing zones. The research from this study was published in Women in the Age of Economic Transformation. She is co-editor of The Women Gender and Development Reader. JOSEPH E. MEDLEY is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. He has participated in research projects in China, Mexico, Central America and southern Africa. He has published articles on US economic and political interventions, development and imperialism in journals including Rethinking Marxism, Review of Radical Political Economics and Research in Political Economy. Professor Medley is founding editor of Rethinking Marxism.

Inhalt

Preface Acknowledgements Aid and Development Successes and Failures: US Aid in the Postwar Era Agriculture in Taiwan and South Korea Industrialization in Taiwan and Korea US Intervention in Vietnam United States Aid to El Salvador and Nicaragua Costa Rica Aid Aid Policy Conclusions in an Era of Financial Crisis Bibliography Appendices Index