"Reshaping The World For The 21st Century evaluates post-World War II economic development efforts in the United States, in Canada, in Brazil, and in Mexico. It argues that the plan of the more fortunate countries to bring prosperity to the less developed ones failed: the development effort did not stop the growth of poverty, did not protect the environment sufficiently, and did not promote human rights energetically.".

"Based on personal accounts of daily life in the megacities Sao Paulo and Mexico City, and on a review of other development analysts' conclusions, Smith evaluates the failures in Brazil and Mexico - the transportation fiascos spawned, the housing situations - and wonders how it could be that the most advanced industrial powers just didn't see that the poverty suffered by most people in Latin American countries was worsening even during the 1960s and 1970s, an era of relative prosperity."--BOOK JACKET.