This book is a deeply thoughtful exploration, growing out of the author's lifelong involvement, of the very difficult questions thrown up by the development process. Marshall Wolfe looks at what has been said and done in the name of development and seeks to identify those elements that seem to offer the best hope of advancing human welfare and social justice. Among the many areas he explores are competing views of what development can mean; the quest for, and very different approaches that have existed to, a unified approach to development; the crisis of the state and the roles of various social groups as agents of development; problems of communication and participation; poverty as the central issue of development policy; the impact of environmental concerns; and likely future directions in how development is conceived and the strategies to be employed. For students of development in need of an overview, activists needing a context for their practical work and specialists wishing to reflect on their own roles, this book is invaluable.