The Bottom Billion

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Recommended: Book reviews on the bottom billion by paul collier

Book Review: The Bottom Billion

The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it talks heavily on world poverty. A great deal of research is provided throughout the entirety of the book to illustrate that change must come from those countries who are recently at the bottom of the pyramid in order to make a change and a difference in society. The world consists of 5 billion people well off or rapidly getting there and 1 billion people falling further behind (Collier). Collier’s thesis explores the reasons why improvised countries fail to progress despite aid and support and why many countries occupants have experienced subpar financial stability and growth over the latter years. As a result, the author wrote this book to state the obvious that lower developed countries are experiencing a downfall due to increased poverty from economical defects.

Colliers main arguments in The Bottom Billion deals with four traps: conflict, natural resources, being landlocked, and bad governance of how countries get stuck in poverty (Collier). The first trap discussed is civil war and why conflict has become progressively concentrated in the lower part of Africa. Collier points out that nearly three quarters of people in the bottom billion have recently been through, or are still in the midst of, a civil war, plague, and ignorance that coexist with the fourteenth century (Collier, 3). Why this has occurred is not because of the legacy of colonialism, income inequality, or political repression minorities, but from internal conflict (Fergurson). Collier states that three things turn out to increase the risk of conflict: a relatively high proportion of young, uneducated men; an imbalance between ethnic groups...

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...of the natural resources such as food, water, and energy.

Works Cited

"Book Review: The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier." Yale Undergraduate Law Review RSS. N.p., 7 June 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.

Ferguson, Niall. The Least Among Us. 1 July 2007. The New York Times. 16 Mar 2014.

Helenaroy. ‘The Bottom Billion’ 14 October 2012. Web. 16 Mar 2014.

Hoebink, Paul. Review of Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion. The European Journal of Development Research. Vol. 20, No. 4, December 2008, 733-744. 16 Mar 2014.

Mays, David. "Book Notes by David Mays." N.p., 2009. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.

"Sovereignty." Merriam-Webster. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.

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