Description: Should scholarship be insulated from political forces or willingly and intentionally subordinated to them? This basic question is at the heart of Robert Packenham's study, the first comprehensive scholarly treatment of dependency theory, its influences, sources, and implications. In the late 1960s dominant theories of Third World development, most of them rooted in the liberal tradition of Locke, Adam Smith, and Weber, were challenged by writers from Latin America and elsewhere. Blending Marxism and nationalism, their dependency ideas--holistic, utopian, politicized--entered the mainstream and in time transformed a number of scholarly fields, including Latin American and African studies, comparative politics, international political economy, and comparative sociology. The Dependency Movement traces this development and explores its ramifications. Drawing on the most influential texts and neglected sources in Portuguese and Spanish, Packenham describes the origins, substantive claims, and methods of various dependency theories. He analyzes the movement comparatively and sociologically as a significant episode in inter-American and North-South cultural relations. In his account, the positive intellectual contributions of dependency ideas, as well as their role in the costly politicization of U.S. scholarship, become evident and comprehensible. Despite its extensive influence, the dependency movement is still little understood. A welcome corrective to this situation, Packenham's analysis clears up many misconceptions and clarifies the issues that surround dependency theory and practices.

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