| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Birth of Development: How the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Health Organization Changed the World, 1945–1965. By Amy L. S. Staples. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2006. xvi, 349 pp. $55.00, ISBN 978-0-87338-849-8.)

In this fine book, Amy L. S. Staples focuses on the first twenty years in the histories of three important agencies for international development created at the end of World War II—the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Health Organization. Part of the story, which Staples tells masterfully, is how the rise of professionalism and progressivism in the early twentieth century created a new ethic of international reform guided by scientific and cultural elites in the developed parts of the world. The horrors of World War II, which stimulated the creation of the United Nations to resolve political and diplomatic disputes, also provided the impetus for the construction of a new international order in economics, nutrition, and health. As she describes the creation of the three agencies and assesses their efforts during the first postwar generation, Staples displays a remarkable grasp of the technical aspects of development in each area as well as a mature understanding of the mechanics of international relations.

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