This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.

Is 'sustainable development' a charade sold to an increasingly misled public? This book presents a wide-ranging, penetrating critique of sustainability and what it actually means. The author argues that despite the rhetoric of socially and environmentally sustainable development and the ever-increasing number of legislative environmental policies, the real issues such as consumption, population growth and equity are either sidestepped or manipulated in international policy and law. Analyzing the main areas of concern - economic growth, market structure, trade, aid, debt, security and sovereignty - he shows that the entire development structure and the underpinnings of the debate are leading down quite a different path to that intended by sustainability.

Is 'sustainable development' a charade sold to an increasingly misled public? This book presents a wide-ranging, penetrating critique of sustainability and what it actually means. The author argues that despite the rhetoric of socially and environmentally sustainable development and the ever-increasing number of legislative environmental policies, the real issues such as consumption, population growth and equity are either sidestepped or manipulated in international policy and law. Analyzing the main areas of concern - economic growth, market structure, trade, aid, debt, security and sovereignty - he shows that the entire development structure and the underpinnings of the debate are leading down quite a different path to that intended by sustainability.

With the razor pen and keen intellect that have won him numerous loyal readers for his previous books, Egyptian economist Galal Amin here takes on the terms of the debate between the Arab world and the west. Amin deconstructs in his own inimitable style the language and underlying assumptions with which the west habitually assails Arab countries and politics. He applies his sharp wit and powers of observation to notions of freedom, democracy, human rights, terrorism (of course), and more, all of which fare the worse for falling under his gaze. In Amin's view, the western concepts of progress and backwardness as they apply to the Arab world are wrong-headed, and continuing to deploy them as theoretical tools leads into all sorts of blind alleys. True to form, Amin's analysis is laced with scholarly research, much humanity, and sly, subtle humor. His critique of the much-discussed UNDP Arab Human Development Report represents a welcome and reasoned Arab reply to this document that has been too frequently used as a cudgel to bash the Arab world. Accompanied by the gently humorous illustrations of Samir Abd al-Ghani, The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World is a deftly argued critique of the way Arab societies are judged by the west.

The illusion of the progression of man is just that, an illusion. Fighting constant battles with one another from the beginning of time until now is what seems to be what we do best. The names change, but we all remain the same. Raise your heads, faithful. He is coming soon!

Evaluates the foundational idea of progress from many perspectives

Takes on the terms of the debate between the Arab world and the West. The author's critique of the much-discussed UNDP Arab Human Development Report represents a reasoned Arab reply to this document that has been too frequently used as a cudgel to bash the Arab world.