The Price of Aid
eBook - PDF

The Price of Aid

The Economic Cold War in India

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Price of Aid

The Economic Cold War in India

About this book

"A superb, field-changing book…A true classic."
—Sunil Amrith


"Makes a major contribution towards a necessary discussion of the politics of aid."
—Times Higher Education


Debates over foreign aid are often strangely ahistorical. Economists argue about effectiveness—how to make aid work—while critics bemoan money wasted on corruption, ignoring the fundamentally political character of aid. The Price of Aid exposes the geopolitical calculus underpinning development assistance, and its costs.

India stood at the center of American and Soviet aid competition throughout the Cold War, as both superpowers saw developmental aid as a way of pursuing their geopolitical goals by economic means. Drawing on recently declassified files from seven countries, David Engerman shows how Indian leaders used Cold War competition to win battles at home, eroding the Indian state in the process. As China spends freely in Africa, the political stakes of foreign aid are rising once again.

"A magnificent book. Anyone who seeks to understand contemporary India and its development struggles will have to start here. Engerman's work is not only enlightening, it turns much of what we thought we knew about India, foreign aid, and the Cold War in South Asia upside down."
—O. A. Westad, author of The Cold War

"An outstanding history…Drawing on an unprecedented array of official and private archives in India, Russia, the United States, and Britain, Engerman offers a superb account—one that integrates the ideologies and policies of the superpowers with a sharp analysis of the push-and-pull of policymaking in India. This is a landmark study of independent India as well as the Cold War."
—Srinath Raghavan, author of India's War

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Yes, you can access The Price of Aid by David C. Engerman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Development Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Map
  7. Introduction: Foreign Aid and Development Politics in India
  8. PART I: Learning Development, 1947–1955
  9. PART II: The Heyday of the Economic Cold War, 1955–1966
  10. PART III: The Bitter Fruits of Development Politics, 1960–1974
  11. Conclusion: Development Politics and the Price of Aid
  12. Note on Sources
  13. Abbreviations
  14. Notes
  15. Acknowledgments
  16. Index