referencebooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} referencebooks) wrote,@ 2005-09-09 09:29:00 |
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| Entry tags: | economics, geography |
World Bank Atlas
World Bank Atlas
Produced and published by The World Bank, 2004.
This is a colorfully-illustrated, thin paperback book, 11" wide and 8.5" tall, running just 65 pages. The User's Guide at the beginning directs readers to the statistical publication on which the Atlas is based, World Development Indicators, 2004, for further information. So this book is more for browsing for one's own education than for supporting research with more than very basic statistics.
As a book for browsing and learning from it's got some wonderful strengths to it. The most obvious of these is the graphical presentation of information in beautifully-done, color-coded maps, charts and graphs. Another strength is that it is well-written, succinct, and clear.
The book's sections are titled:
- The world by region
- Rich countries - and poor
- How have demographics changed?
- Urban demands on the world's environment
- Many people are still poor
- Education opens doors
- Children under five -- struggling to survive
- Improving the health of mothers
- Communicable diseases -- too little progress
- Gender and development
- Limited land and more demand for food
- A thirsty planet gets thirstier
- Forests
- Energy use and a warmer world
- Growth and opportunity
- The rise of the service economy
- Investment for growth
- Improving the investment climate
- Government performance
- Infrastructure
- The integrating world
- Reducing barriers to trade
- External debt and debt management
- Aid for development
- Key indicators of development
- Notes
- Millenium Development Goals, targets and indicators
- Ranking of economies by GNI per capita
Astute readers will see evidence of the World Bank's own priorities and ideology right in that list of sections. "Investment for growth," "Improving the investment climate," "Government performance," and "Reducing barriers to trade" are certainly sections where the World Bank's ideology is in evidence. An awareness of the World Bank's ideology is important in using this book, and not just for people who are opposed to that institution. This is because it affects their picture of what development is and isn't, and affects what is measured and how they measure it. Foreign ownership of a country's economy and infrastructure is indirectly presented in a positive light, with no attention to its side-effects, and development is measured primarily in money terms, with no recognition of the value of cultural features and strengths that are simply lost in the process of development as the World Bank defines it.
Verdict: use this attractive book with caution.
