Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden have, to varying degrees, earned a reputation for being more responsive to Third World needs and aspirations than other developed industrial societies. This greater measure of humane internationalism is a product of the combined influence of a wide range of factors that includes religious, political, economic, and diplomatic traditions. But Cranford Pratt cautions against exaggerating the internationalist thrust of the North/South policies, particularly in the case of Canada.

In this volume a number of senior scholars offer interpretive essays on the North/South policies of these four middle powers. The contributors have all worked extensively on these issues; they are neither naively optimistic nor fatigued and despondent about what has been accomplished or what lies ahead. The concluding chapter is a comparative study of the role of humane internationalism in the policies of these four countries and a prognosis of the influence which a humane middle-power internationalism may yet have on Northern responses to the challenge of global poverty.