Immerwahr, Daniel. Thinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Summary
Modernization, as a theory of development, shared a “rival impulse” in community development during the 1950s and 1960s. Responding to the popular memory and romanticism of the small-scale (“Modernization Comes to Town” Story/caricature of the past), Immerwhar’s book historicizes the pursuit of “community” and an approach, defined as “community development” that attempted '''shore up small-scale solidarities and encourage civic and democratic participation'''. Immerwahr writes: “Thinking Small traces a generation of thinkers and policymakers,” including Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, Ferdinand Marcos, John F. Kennedy as well as mid-level functionaries working for the UN and the Peace Corps, “who identified '''scale as a central issue '''and whose attitudes toward centralization fell somewhere between wariness and outright hostility.” By 1960, the UN counted sixty countries with community development projects; Immerwahr’s book focuses on the U.S., India, and the Philippines. These three countries, Imemrwahr argues, were among the most important. India, he contends, shaped “both the ideological components of community development and many of its basic practices.” The Philippines was a testing ground for community development tied with counterinsurgency. Eventually, these experiences made it back to the U.S. in the form of Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” In India, Immerwahr argues, community development schemes tended to empower local elite, rather than the peasants themselves. As a result, it reinforced structural problems (unequal land tenure, caste, and patriarchy). Immerwahr concludes: “Community development was, in other words, neither a utopia nor a panacea. It was a complicated undertaking encompassing a mix of hope, disappointment, and unintended consequences.”

Example: India Etawah Project

See also: David Elkbadh, Andrew Zimmerman