Amiya Kumar Bagchi. The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. London: Cambridge University Press. 1982. Reprint 1983. pp.viii+276. List of books for further reading; Index. Price: £ 8.50 (paperback edition).

Amiya Kumar Bagchi, an eminent economist of the modernCambridge tradition, has produced a timely treatise, in a condensedform, on the development problems of the Third World countries. Theauthor's general thesis is that economic development in the developingsocieties necessarily requires a radical transformation in the economic,social and political structures. As economic development is actually asocial process, economic growth should not be narrowly defined as thegrowth of the stock of rich capitalists. Neither can their savings beequated to capital formation whose impact on income will presumably'trickle down' to the working classes. Economic growth strategies mustnot aim at creating rich elites, because, according to the author,"maximizing the surplus in the hands of the rich in the Third World isnot, however, necessarily a way of maximizing the rate ofgrowth".