Escape from Empire: The Developing World's Journey Through Heaven and Hell by Alice H. Amsden

3.33 AVERAGE

hawkinme's review

2.0
I thought that the reason I didn't understand this book was because I have a very poor grasp of economics, but other people in my class seemed to have problems with it, too. It has a really interesting thesis and Amsden really knows her stuff, but it's awfully confusing.

beataf's review

4.0
Amsden uses very colorful language to an occasionally overwrought degree to argue, essentially, that the U.S. should manage multipolarity by increasing real investment and engagement with Latin America as its region of influence. Her argument is a little less Monroe Doctrine-y than it sounds, and her narrative of postwar global development is really interesting, if at times a little light on details and a little heavy on using a couple developing countries as examples for a theory she says explains all of them. The condemnation of neolibs and free market doctrinaires is not unique but certainly welcome, particularly reading this 2007 text in 2019.
(read for school)