William Easterly, a World Bank economist, proves an expert tour guide to the blunders the development community has made over the decades. "Economists' adventures and misadventures in the tropics" is the pop-sounding subtitle.

In the main Easterly has written an intellectual history of the development profession, with examples from the projects he's worked on firsthand. First they thought capital was the key to growth and development. It wasn't. Then education. It wasn't. Then population control...

Easterly has a running theme -- that people respond to incentives. So often aid is given without a thought to whether this incentivizes people to do the right things. Russia's the classic example, of course -- open markets with no property rights incentivized people to steal stuff, and then ship it offshore to prevent anyone esle from stealing it.

It's interesting stuff -- for an economics book -- with ample anectodes from Easterly's extensive development fieldwork wedged in. Though sometimes clumsy and a bit dry.