Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi. The Evolution of Development Policy: A Reinterpretation. Oxford University Press, 2010. 442 pages. Hardbound. Pak. Rs 995.00.

‘The Evolution of Development Policy: A Reinterpretation’ by S. N. Haider Naqvi is an excellent and timely discourse on development paradigms. The author lucidly traces evolution of different development paradigms and in the process not only thoroughly explains, what each paradigm stands but also critically evaluates each paradigm. The book is organised into seven parts. Part I, comprising ‘preliminaries’ gives an overview of the evolution of thinking on development policy. The analytical framework highlights the faults in the structure of development policy. To set the framework for analysing development policy, the book argues that an evolutionary perspective on development policy should be examined under three paradigms: traditional development paradigm; the liberalist paradigm and the human development paradigm. The author takes pains to describe various important aspects of this framework. The author also argues that some aspects of the traditional development paradigm have been misunderstood and in the process elucidate the subject.