Book Title
Book
One man’s 2½ years inside one of Africa’s poorest, most corrupt countries — a gripping memoir that became a New York Times Book of the Century.
Author: Robert Klitgaard
Year: 1990
Publisher: Basic Books
Topics: International Development, Corruption, Africa, Memoir, Equatorial Guinea
About This Book
Tropical Gangsters takes you beyond the slogans and ideologies of international development to the complexities, absurdities, and possibilities of one of the poorest places on the planet.
Robert Klitgaard spent two and a half years in Equatorial Guinea in charge of a multimillion-dollar economic rehabilitation program. What he found was lethargy, corruption, and adventurism — occasionally leavened with humor and good will. This gripping memoir blends personal reminiscence with economic analysis, telling how he wrestled with corrupt states, cynical cultures, and the gangsters who ran them.
Along the way, Klitgaard fought for the human rights of a co-worker arrested and tortured by the government, confronted the nation’s president, and searched the coastline for surfing spots. A landmark in the literature of international development — named one of the New York Times Books of the Century.
Praise
” Not often will you meet a book on third-world development that is also painfully funny — and this one is both.”
Attribution: Kirkus Reviews
” A marvelous book. It reads like a novel and yet it illuminates, as few academic studies can, the problems of economic development.”
Attribution: The Economist
“Selected as one of the Books of the Century.”
Attribution: New York Times Book Review
Related Work
Related themes: Anti-Corruption & Integrity | International Development
Related books: Tropical Gangsters II | Corrupt Cities | Controlling Corruption