The Presentist Bias: Ahistoricism, Equity, and International Development in the 1970s

This article examines development thinking in the 1970s, when modernisation templates stressing growth and industrialisation gave way to a direct concern for relieving poverty. Although this new direction broke with development paradigms that presented Western history as a model for universal emulation, equity advocates cultivated new forms of presentism that continued to overlook the local histories of developing nations. An increased sense of the ethical urgency of development and demands for immediate practical action hardened the technical and ahistorical biases of development practice.