One of the major cultural and economic issues facing both Australia and Canada concerns the governments' past and present failures to involve the "first peoples" in development. Elspeth Young contrast the materialist development approach of both big companies and governments with the stress of the Indian, Inuit and Aboriginal peoples place on husbanding natural resources.
Exploring why attempts to promote minority development have failed, whether models of sustainable development are applicable to remote area development, as well as the crucial issue of self-determination, the book reveals the yawning gap between what people want and what governments are prepared to offer. The author argues that this gap can only be briged by alternative approaches to development, centered on participation and the acknowledgement of these peoples' holistic sense of community.

European colonisation has marginalised the first peoples' in industrialised countries such as Australia and Canada. In remote regions, still the homes of large Aboriginal, Indian and Inuit populations, this legacy remains strong.
Modernisation - the boom and bust' model of state and private development - and the partial and biased assistance provided by the state have eroded many communities through their disregard for socio-economic structures and the beliefs which underpin them.
Third World in the First explores the past, present and future of these peoples, their treatment by the West' and the alternative strategies of development which might be available to them.