A World Fit for People

As one would expect from a collection of 50 essays from a recent U.N. Development Program conference in Romania, this volume is extraordinarily heterogeneous in outlook, quality, and theme. Contributors range from academic economists to journalists, heads of nongovernmental organizations, and serving foreign ministers and presidents. While some of the individual papers, like that of Kishore Mahbubani, are serious and provocative, others are far more predictable. Discomfort with the neoliberal policies of the 1980s is a common theme.