Development and Its Discontents

By Dr Andy Sumner

Development and Its Discontents is a critical examination of development studies' history and what it has become, and what it might yet be. It argues that the field is increasingly differentiated along competing modes of thought, worldviews, and claims to knowledge, bringing long-running debates about the study of development back into sharp focus.

Drawing on cross-disciplinary thinking on development, from the rise of classical development economics and the anti-colonial momentum of the Bandung era to contemporary decolonial critiques, the book maps the intellectual currents that have shaped development studies and the tensions and debates that now structure it. The result is a framework for recognising the field's internal pluralism and for taking interdisciplinarity more seriously, without pretending that its disagreements are merely semantic. For scholars and students, Development and Its Discontents offers a guide to the intellectual architecture of development studies, its contested boundaries, and the questions now shaping its future.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198902875
• ISBN13: 9780198902874
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 176 Pages