The World Bank is a controversial organisation. It is widely viewed with suspicion, as the international economic arm of the US, in thrall to the President who is responsible for appointing the head of the Bank.

Eric Toussaint gives a highly readable account of just why the World Bank has become so powerful. In short, clear chapters he shows how the bank operates, who funds it, and what it sets out to promote.

The Bank's main purpose is to grant loans to all the newly independent states of the developing world, to help them on their journey to recovery after colonial occupation. In reality, the conditions imposed on these states -- including enforced privatisation of all public services, and enforced neo-liberal rules on trade -- mean that the Bank has become the new colonial authority in everything but name.

This is a perfect book for anyone looking for a critical introduction to the history of the Bank and its role in world affairs.

Eric Toussaint is president of the Brussels-based Committee for Cancellation of the Third World Debt and is a Fellow and frequent lecturer at the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam. He edits the journal Les Autres Voix de la Planete and co-edited the anthology IMF/World Bank/WTO: The Free-Market Fiasco (Amsterdam, 1995). Raghu Krishnan is a translator, interpreter and journalist. His articles have appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly(Bombay), Monthly Review (New York) and International Viewpoint (Paris). Hetranslated Claude Jacquin's book The Trade-Union Left and the Birth of aNew South Africa (IIRE, Amsterdam, 1999). He currently lives in Paris.

About this book
Terminology
Introduction
1. The creation of the Bretton Woods institutions
2. The first years of the World Bank (1946-1962)
3. Difficult beginnings between the UN and the World Bank
4. The post-World War II context - the Marshall Plan and US bilateral aid
5. A Bank under the influence
6. World Bank and IMF support of dictatorships
7. The World Bank and the Philippines (1946-1990)
8. The World Bank's support of the dictatorship in Turkey
9. The Bank in Indonesia: a textbook case of intervention
10. The World Bank's theories on development
11. South Korea: the miracle unmasked
12. The debt trap
13. The World Bank saw the debt crisis looming
14. The Mexican debt crisis and the World Bank
15. The World Bank and the IMF: the creditors' bailiffs
16. Presidents Barber Conable and Lewis Preston (1986-1995)
17. James Wolfensohn switches on the charm (1995-2005)
18. Debates in Washington at the start of the twenty-first century
19. The World Bank's accounts
20. Paul Wolfowitz, 10th World Bank President
21. Structural adjustment and the Washington Consensus: are they things of the past?
22. The World Bank and the respect of human rights
23. Time to put an end to World Bank impunity
24. An indictment of the World Bank
Afterword: Interview with Eric Toussaint
Notes
Bibliography
Index