INDIA AND THE WEST

by Barbara Ward ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 15, 1960

Economist Barbara Ward insists India's experiment with economic growth within the framework of political freedom will be decisive for all of mankind. She maintains that if the West (not just the U.S.) granted India some $5.4 billion (preferably $10 billion) over the next five years India could achieve an economic breakthrough. Five billion dollars, she points out, is about one-sixtieth of the amount the West would spend on arms in that period. The author argues for a Marshall Plan approach to Indian aid, rather than patchwork attempts at solution. When the U.S. adopted the Marshall Plan for Europe it committed itself to aid for as long as it took to put the productive mechanism in full working order. Such a commitment is needed for India, at least to economic breakthrough point, she argues. She says that the West, where the Industrial Revolution started, seems to have taken the world only half-way and all the levers of the future seem, to the underdeveloped, to be in Communist hands. Communist China has pulled well ahead of India because it can force investment in the long-range tools of production rather than in short-term consumer-satisfying procedures. But India has made much progress in industry--although not in agriculture -- and can with the West's help succeed. She warns that the uncommitted half of the world is watching. A smoothly written, if lengthy, book, probably for the academically inclined. Much of it in fact deals not so much with present-day India but with the origins of the Industrial Revolution in the West and the history of ""colonialism"".

Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1960

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1960

Categories: NONFICTION