In his new book Gunnar Myrdal summarizes the research and conclusions of Asian Drama, his monumental three-volume study of developing countries, extrapolating into a series of complex, unexpected, and controversial recommendations that speak directly to the many unsolved problems of poverty and the possibilities of poverty and the possibilities of development. Myrdal's concern is not only with industrialization but also with the fact of unproductive and marginal agricultural labour in countries where this labour pool represents the vast majority of the work force. The vital relationship between social equality and productivity is exhaustively analysed, as is the grey area between ideology and policy planning. But the thrust of the book deals with the ways in which traditional concepts concerning development have actually come to impede it. The Challenge of World Poverty is a gauntlet thrown down to a world that is failing to meet its own need for survival, and an agenda for thinking in new ways about assistance programmes, resource allotments, policy planning, and human need. - Dust jacket.