According to the Centre for the Study of African economies (2010), Paul Collier is an astute Professor of Economics, a revered director for the Centre for the Study of African economies at Oxford University and a widely published author whose several books and articles numerous scholarly genres have received a good number of honorary accolades.įor example, in 1988, he was prized with the Edgar Graham Book Prize for his worthwhile writings in the book Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania: Ujamaa and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania. Book Summary Who is the author?Īs glimpsed in the introduction, the Bottom Billion was written by Paul Collier. It is on the basis of such scholarly arguments that the expansive review, detailed below, is done. However, in one way or another, even these critics have confessed that, generally speaking, the book is an epitome of resourceful information. Of course, like many other books, there have been a few scholars who have opined that some places in the book were a bit too obvious (like the nature of poverty in Africa) or exaggerated (like the role of western governments in helping in poverty alleviation). All these strong opinions of the book, from authoritative sources duly qualify the book as an epitome of invaluable information on the nature of economies today (Reinert, 2011). Stewart’s sentiments are echoed by Quinn (2008) who says that the book is a well written masterpiece talking of “a paradigm shift away from poverty alleviation as a goal of development”. Stewart (2007) of the Guardian calls it an “important book” and rallies behind Collier who, in the book, calls for well-performing countries-especially those positioned in the western geographical hemisphere of the world-to use their resources in areas like technology to help uplifting the suffering countries. According to Wolf (2007) of the venerated Financial Times, this book is indeed “a splendid book” which sheds light on the dark moral challenges that often impede the bottom billion countries from actualizing their economic goals.
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