The Complete Review – which is the Rotten Tomatoes for lucky books – brings together snippets of major reviews on Dambisa Moyo’s critique of current foreign aid, Dead Aid, together with links to the reviews.
I get very tired of overstaters. So the Economist review turned me off:
“Dead Aid does not move the debate along much. Yes, she has joined the chorus of disapproval — and that in itself might surprise a few diehards who think that Africans should just be grateful for the aid and shut up. But her arguments are scarcely original and her plodding prose makes her the least stylish of the critics. Moreover, she overstates her case, almost to the point of caricature.”
David Evans' personal blog 
I read his article in the Weekend WSJ and was curious about what you thought of his ideas.
The Wall Street Journal likes anything that dislikes aid. Big surprise. And that’s fine to a degree; there are MAJOR problems in the aid industry (not that i’ve seen awesome solutions). i haven’t read Dead Aid, but my good friend Chris Blattman (who I usu agree with) did: http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/2009/03/dead-aid-doa.html.
As I suspected, she overstates and engages in simplistic solutions (like recommending benevolent dictators). I think honest, serious recommendations for reform in aid should be welcome. Bill Easterly’s White Man’s Burden has some of this despite his shrill tone, even if he is a white male.
Oops! should have said HER article.
I got the feeling that WSJ was so eager to praise her that they didn’t even take the time to really read the book.
I find that eminently plausible.
[…] Tukapamoja points me to the complete reviews on (NamibianZambian-born) Dambisa Moyo’s new book, Dead Aid. My impression of the book is a linear combination of three: […]