Beyond The Sociology Of Development

This book is a collection of essays that discuss the sociology of development from a variety of angles. The book was published in 1975, and it reflects the influence of Andre Gunder Frank, who was a prominent figure in the development sociology field at the time. However, the contributors take a critical approach to Frank's ideas, and they apply them to different contexts in Africa, America, and Latin America.

Conceived as a response to the economic naivety and implicit metropolitan bias of many 1950s and 60s studies of 'the sociology of development' , this volume, first published in 1975, provides actual field studies and theoretical reviews to indicate the directions which a conceptually more adequate study of developing societies should take. Much of the book reflects strongly the influence of Andre Gunder Frank, but the contributors adopt a critical attitude to his ideas, applying them in empirical situations within such African and American countries as Kenya, Guyana, Tanzania and Peru. Others pursue the lines of enquiry opened up by Latin American theories of economic 'dependency' and by the new school of French economic anthropology.