When did the era of development start? In our Development Dictionary we identified President Harry S. Truman as the villain. Indeed, on 20 January 1949, in his inaugural address he referred to more than half of the world’s population as coming from ‘underdeveloped areas’. It was the first time that the term ‘underdevelopment’, which would later become a key category for the justification of power, both international and national, was proclaimed from a prominent political stage. This speech opened the era of development – a period of world history, which followed the colonial era, only to be
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