First published in 1995. Since its establishment as a separate discipline within the social sciences in the post-war world, development sociology has undergone a number of theoretical transformations, each of which attempted to overcome the inadequacies of the previous paradigm and a matter of academic debate, but many writers agree that the discipline has reached something of an impasse. This book is concerned with explaining the reasons for the impasse and suggesting ways of moving beyond it. Its focus is on Marxist and related theories of development and underdevelopment since these have dominated the field for the past 20 or so years.