History, historians and development policy : A necessary dialogue / edited by C.A. Bayly [and others].

"A joint product of the Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, Development Research Group, World Bank, and History & Policy, www.history and policy.org."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Overview of key issues. How and why history matters for development policy / Michael Woolcock, Simon Szreter and Vijayendra Rao -- Indigenous and colonial origins of comparative economic development: The case of colonial India and Africa / C.A. Bayly -- Commentary: History, time and temporality in development discourse / Uma Kothari -- Historical contributions to contemporary development policy issues: Social Protection. Social security as a developmental institution? The relative efficacy of Poor Relief provisions under the English old Poor Law / Richard Smith -- Historical lessons about contemporary social welfare: Chinese puzzles and global challenges / R. Bing Wong -- Commentary: Why might history matter for development policy? / Ravi Kanbur -- Public Health. Health in India since Independence / Sunil S. Amrith -- Health care policy for American Indians since the early 20th century / Stephen J. Kunitz -- Commentary: Can historians assist development policy-making, or just highlight its faults? / David Hall-Mathews -- Public education. The end of literacy: The growth and measurement of British public education since the early nineteenth century / David Vincent -- The tools of transition: Education and development in modern southeast Asian history / Tim Harper -- Commentary: Remembering the forgetting in education / Lant Pritchett -- Natural resource management. Energy and natural resource dependency in Europe, 1600-1900 / Paul Warde -- Special rights in property: Why modern African economies are dependent on mineral resources / Keith Breckenridge -- Commentary: Natural resources and development-which histories matter? / Mick Moore.

Leading historians and policy advisors explore the implications of incorporating historical sensibilities into key development policy issues.

"If history matters for understanding key development outcomes then surely historians should be active contributors to the debates informing these understandings. This volume integrates, for the first time, contributions from ten leading historians and seven policy advisors around the central development issues of social protection, public health, public education and natural resource management. Where did the policy ideas underpinning these sectors come from? How did certain ideas, and not others, gain traction in shaping particular policy responses? How did the content and effectiveness of these responses vary across different countries, and indeed within them? Answering these questions requires incorporating historical sensibilities into development policy deliberations in ways that take seriously the importance of context, process, and contestation. Achieving this is not merely a matter of seeking to "know more" about specific times, places and issues, but recognizing the distinctive ways in which historians rigorously assemble, analyze and interpret diverse forms of evidence. Doing so gives rise to policy conclusions rather different to those emerging from prevailing analytical approaches. This book will appeal to students and scholars in Development Studies, History, International Relations, Politics, Geography as well as policy makers and those working for or studying NGO's." Publisher's website.