History, historians and development policy

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.