This document provides a review of the book "Review of Development, Poverty of Culture, and Social Policy" by Brij Mohan. The book refutes that poverty is solely an economic issue and rejects the idea that poverty is based on culture. It offers new ways to understand poverty in order to build a future that can overcome it. The book contains 15 chapters divided into three parts examining the culture of development, the mind of darkness, and transformative social policy. It argues that prevailing theories of development have failed and offers the concept of the "Poverty of Culture" as a new framework for understanding inequality. The reviewer recommends the book for those interested in connecting ideas across disciplines to address social issues beyond traditional approaches.

1. Poverty & Public Policy1
, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2015
Review of Development, Poverty of Culture, and Social Policy.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 218 pages. ISBN 978-0-
230-11025-0. Kindle, $76.00. Hardcover, $87.20. Brij
Mohan. 2011.
Much of the twentieth-century social science discourse has been
centered on three theoretical frameworks, which author Brij
Mohan demythologizes in this provocative albeit courageous book.
Mohan refutes that poverty is an economic issue; he rejects age-old
conjectures that poverty is based on culture and offers new
pathways to understand poverty and thus to build a future that can
truly overcome poverty.
The book under review has a succinctly worded foreword by one
of America’s most respected progressive social welfare theorists,
David G. Gil, Brandeis University. Mark Lusk, Kenneth Millar,
and William Epstein, all social work leaders in the United States,
also have endorsed the book. The main burden of the book is not
the culture of poverty that breeds inequality and injustice but the
poverty of culture that perpetuates the persistence of despair.
The author’s central thesis rests on three premises: (i) The “politics
of development” (Chapter IV) is counterproductive; (ii) human and
social development cannot be isolated from each other; and (iii)
transformative social and public policies call for radical steps to
advance humanity beyond its own trappings (Parts I and II). The
author’s firm belief in the nobility of American Creed seems
shattered by the constrictions of a nation still divided by race,
class, and gender.
1 93 1944-2858 # 2015 Policy Studies Organization Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ.
94 Poverty & Public Policy, 7:1

2. As I write this review, a rather unknown town in the suburbs of St.
Louis, Missouri, has shaken the conscience of America after an
unarmed African American teenager named Michael Brown was
shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson on August 9, 2014.
Mohan takes on social sciences that have failed to address, let
alone resolve, systemic contradictions so vividly portrayed by the
horrifying pictures of Ferguson on fire.
The book contains 15 chapters methodically classified in three
parts: I, Culture of Development; II, The Mind of Darkness; and
III, Transformative Social Policy. Brij Mohan may not be a
positivist, but one can find streaks of optimism in his view of the
future. At the same time, his basic mistrust of the
developmentalists’ neoglobal orthodoxy should be taken seriously.
Social theorists, planners, and policymakers will learn from the
following conclusion: “The idea of Poverty of Culture (PoC) is
thus proffered as a unifying theme for unraveling the dynamics of
inequality and injustice and corresponding interventions and
policies that have either failed or become counterproductive” (pp.
xiv– xv). “The iron law of social development has not been laid
down yet. As a state without order leads to anarchy, a society
without reason and justice morphs into chaos” (p. xix).
Professor Gil captures the essence and ethos of this book better
than anyone could conceptualize:
“Over several decades of professional and personal relationship with Prof. Brij Mohan, I
have come to consider him an innovative educator, a leading scholar and thinker, and a
prolific author on the human condition, human development, and social welfare.... Could
the human species eventually transcend socially structured injustice, from local to global
level, involving widespread poverty sustained by prevailing cultures of poverty? Prof.
Mohan’s answer to this fateful question, implicit in his earlier writings, seems to be a
conditional YES.... Such movement efforts ... ought to be supported by people who are
committed to human survival and genuine social development in the context of global
justice and peace.” (pp. ix–x)

3. The book, at times, is a hard read and its cost is high; yet, it makes
a compelling argument about Mohanian constructs that focus on
developmentality, the Western mindset that considers developing
nations as white man’s burden and the developing nations that
mimic a failed messiah. The author contends that much of foreign
aid geopolitically allocated to certain countries goes to waste; it is
even counterproductive (Pakistan is a glaring example).
Developing nations, by and large, languish because of their own
historico-cultural deficits; and, finally, global development
amounts to a delusional fantasy when the divided world plays
politics at the expense of universal well-being.
I highly recommend this book for intellectuals, policymakers,
researchers, and students in the humanities and the social sciences
who are willing to connect the dots beyond the dated boxes.
Shweta Singh
Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi