Rostow's theory of the stages of economic growth has been
criticized over the past decade for its ahistorical, apolitical
view of development and its basic automatism. Here Rostow takes
each stage before and after industrial "takeoff" and discusses
concomitant political developments in a number of 19th and
20th-century cases. He still writes as if the world in which
Britain industrialized is fundamentally equivalent to all latter
days. . . as if contemporary "developing" countries have truly
national economies. . . as if their backwardness, deformation and
collapse represents "delayed" development. He relies on
anthropomorphic abstractions like "impulses" toward
industrialization and "fractured" traditional society, and since he
rarely deals with social groups beyond the elite and the masses,
key political battles among broad classes or ruling sections are
bypassed in favor of mere descriptions of governmental policies.
Rostow is utterly indifferent to the economic problem of capital
accumulation, much less its political manifestations; and since he
declines to explore the interconnections of the world economy, key
developmental issues like the debt burdens of India and Latin
America are relegated to parentheses. Since the book is gravely
flawed even without reference to its cold-war biases or Rostow's
public role as privy hawk - though some critics will dwell on them
- it only remains to note that Rostow refuses to directly confront
his critics and thereby further devaluates whatever residual worth
the book offers scholars and students. (Kirkus Reviews)
In The Stages of Economic Growth, for which he is known around the
world, W. W. Rostow distinguished five basic stages of growth
experienced by societies as they change from a pre-industrial state
to full economic maturity. In this book the analysis is continued
but the focus is shifted, from economic growth to politics.
Professor Rostow see politics as an eternal triangle of competing
imperatives - of security, welfare, and constitutional order. Using
this concept, he examines the political meaning and content of each
of the stages as experienced by eight countries; Great Britain,
France, China, Japan, Russia, Turkey, Mexico and the United States.
He goes on to consider, in the heart of the book, a uniquely
political stage: the search for quality which is possible in an age
of high mass consumption. Special attention is given the United
States. Professor Rostow also examines the character of politics in
the developing nations of today, and makes explicit what he sees to
be the lessons of history and the contemporary world for these
nations. He concludes by using his analysis to speculate on
possibilities for peace in the global community.
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