Featuring
Daniel Immerwahr
Assistant Professor
Northwestern University
Discussant
Sarah Snyder
Assistant Professor
American University
Host
Michael Clemens
Senior Fellow
Center for Global Development
Since the 1990s, a great deal of attention has been paid to giving local communities control over their own developmental destinies through community development programs. But such programs are not new. In his new book titled Thinking Small, Historian Daniel Immerwahr has uncovered a largely forgotten global experiment in grassroots development in the 1950s and 1960s, one that touched dozens of nations and gained the support of powerful backers. Sifting through the evidence, Immerwahr offers a cautionary tale about how attempts to empower local communities have gone astray.
