The World Bank

A Critical History

Eric Toussaint

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780745348285
• eBook ISBN: 9780745348308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

'Superior … A broad-ranging guide that explains the global power structure over the last eight decades' Carlos Marichal, El Colegio de México

'Covering the history of the Bank from its early days as a prop to European colonialism through the Rwandan genocide, the Washington Consensus and the Iraq war, Toussaint argues that the Bank is incorrigible and should be abolished. Read and judge for yourselves' James K. Galbraith, author, Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe

'Invites fresh thinking on the need to streamline human rights considerations into lending. Recommended reading' Andrés Solimano, founder, International Center for Globalization and Development

In 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference ushered in a new international economic order. The World Bank emerged as one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, and a new colonial authority in all but name. But how does it operate, who funds it, and what agenda does it work to promote?

In The World Bank: A Critical History, Éric Toussaint answers all of these questions and more. Offering up a highly readable yet uniquely authoritative account, the book analyses the Bank from its beginnings to the present day. Chapters on gender, climate and the pandemic era provide the reader with a truly contemporary, definitive text.

Seven international case studies illustrate the impact of World Bank policy, and Toussaint also explores the political, economic and strategic motives of the US government with regard to the World Bank. The book concludes with a proposal for replacing the World Bank, IMF and WTO with new, multilateral and democratic institutions.

Éric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist. He is spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, of which he is one of the founding members. He is the author or co-author of numerous books including Bankocracy, The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man, and Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Terminology: South/North – Developing/Developed. Just What Are We Talking About?
• Introduction
• 1 The Origins of the Bretton Woods Institutions
• 2 The First Years of the World Bank (1946–62)
• 3 Difficult Beginnings between the UN and the World Bank
• 4 The Post-1945 Context: The Marshall Plan and the London Agreement on Germany’s Debt
• 5 A Bank Under the Influence
• 6 World Bank and IMF Support for Dictatorships
• 7 The World Bank and the Philippines (1946–90)
• 8 The World Bank’s Support for the Dictatorship in Turkey
• 9 The Bank in Indonesia: A Textbook Case of Intervention
• 10 The World Bank’s Theoretical Falsehoods Regarding Development
• 11 South Korea: The ‘Miracle’ Unmasked
• 12 The Debt Trap
• 13 The World Bank Sees the Debt Crisis Looming
• 14 The Mexican Debt Crisis and the World Bank
• 15 The World Bank and the IMF: The Creditors’ Enforcers
• 16 Presidents Barber Conable and Lewis Preston (1986–95)
• 17 Rwanda: The Genocide’s Financiers
• 18 James Wolfensohn Switches on the Charm (1995–2005)
• 19 Debates in Washington at the Start of the Twenty-first Century
• 20 Structural Adjustment and the Washington Consensus Are Not Abandoned in 2000
• 21 Climate and the Environmental Crisis: Sorcerer’s Apprentices at the World Bank and the IMF
• 22 Paul Wolfowitz (2005–07): An Architect of the Invasion of Iraq at the Head of the World Bank
• 23 Ecuador: Progress and the Limits of Resistance to the Policies of the World Bank, the IMF and Other Creditors
• 24 The US President’s Men Keep Control of the World Bank
• 25 The World Bank and the Arab Spring
• 26 The IMF and the World Bank in the Time of Coronavirus: The Failed Campaign for a New Image
• 27 The ‘Gender Equity’ Farce: A Feminist Reading of World Bank Policies
• 28 The World Bank and Human Rights
• 29 Time to Put an End to World Bank Impunity
• 30 The Case for Abolishing and Replacing the IMF and the World Bank
• Annexes
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Works by Éric Toussaint Published in English
• Index