In the late 20th century, there has been a rethinking of the whole concept of development, including a growing awareness of its gender, cultural and environmental dimensions, and the impact of globalization.

The contributors to this volume seek to extend these debates to a more fundamental level, tackling such issues as the crisis of development as an intellectual and practical project, the need for a break with development as a Eurocentric concept, and the viability of alternative, non-Western forms of development.

The contributors aim to transcend critiques of development which simply engage in a blanket dismissal of the whole enterprise and instead offer ways of re-engaging with reality that, despite globalization, is still a dimension of the late-20th century.

Ronaldo Munck is Professor of Political Sociology and Director of the Globalization and Social Exclusion Unit at the University of Liverpool. Previously he held the first post- apartheid Chair in Sociology at the University of Durban Westville in South Africa and taught for many years at the University of Ulster in the North of Ireland. He has written extensively on labour issues including The New International Labour Studies (Zed Books, 1988), Argentina: From Anarchism to Peronism. Workers, Unions and Politics,1855-1985 (Zed Books, 1987) and Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalization. Alternative Union Models in the New World Order (1999, coedited with Peter Waterman). His recent work includes Marx @ 2000: Late Marxist Perspectives (paperback edition, Zed Books, 2002) and Critical Development Theory. Contributions to a New paradigm (Zed Books, 1999, coedited with Denis O'Hearn). He is currently researching labour flexibility and worker organizations in Latin America.

Denis O'Hearn is both an economist and a sociologist. He was educated at the Universities of New Mexico and Michigan. For several years he taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he was Associate Professor of Sociology. Currently, he is Reader in Sociology at Queen's University, Belfast. He is Editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology. His recent books include States, Firms and Raw MAterials: A Case from the International Aluminium Industry (with Bradford Barham and Stephen Bunker) (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995) and Inside the Celtic Tiger: Irish Economic Change and the Asian Model (London: Pluto, forthcoming).