Extracts from reviews:
This is the final volume of the author's trilogy, which includes Economic without Time (1993. London: Macmillan) and Longrun Dynamics (1998. London: Macmillan). It builds on his The Dynamic Society (1996. London: Routledge), The Ephemeral Civilization (1997. London: Routledge), and The Laws of History (1998. London: Routledge). Snooks' work, which takes the system of national economies as his subject of study, is ambitious, brilliant, and suggestive . . .
The author largely rejects conventional development theory, which he finds to be narrow, static, incomplete, and wrong headed. He accepts that economic development is a seff-sustaining process and emphasizes process rather than outcomes and attention to deliberative strategies for development. He focuses on materialist rather than economic man. Viewed broadly, Snooks has a place, within his dynamic model, for technology, supply and demand, institutions, population, capital accumulation, rules, and so on. . . .
Snooks' work here and in his other books contains much empirical strength, whether used along with or in opposition to conventional neoclassical economics. . . .
His is a comprehensive account of economic development — one is desperately needed, and his is a reasonably sensible one . . .
-- Warren J. Samuels, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 38, no. 4, December 2000, pp. 982–3.
In this volume, Snooks extends the ideas of strategic leadership and strategic demand developed in his previous books — Economic without Time: A Science Blind to the Forces of Historical Change and Longrun Dynamics: A General Economic and Political Theory — to the global realm. . . .
. . . Snooks spells out the progress of the GST [Global Starategic Transition] by world regions and reviews traditional development theory and policy, as well as the traditional view of the future. He stresses the inability of the neoclassical model, which is based on a static view of production, to explain and address the development issues facing many Third World countries. . . .
This book is fun to read, if a bit repetitious and pedantic. Snooks is eternally enthusiastic about the role of strategy and he roams over a wide range of topics with solid scholarship. . . .
. . . there are guidelines for government action suggested in the final chapter. Can you guess what they are? To find out I suggest you read the book.
-- Malcolm Dowling, Australian Economic History Review, vol. 41, no. 1, March 2001, pp. 93–5.
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