Not all these books are freshly pressed. If you are interested in international development, the history of ideas and practices is just as important as the new ones. This list reflects my work and interests as much as it is an exhaustive list.
In chronological order:
Peasants into Frenchmen – Weber (1976)
Weapons of the Weak – Scott (1985)
Encountering Development – Escobar (1994)
Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last – Chambers (1997)
Development as Freedom – Sen (2000)
Infections and Inequalities – Farmer (2001)
Reclaiming Development – Chang (2004)
The End of Poverty – Sachs (2006)
Bury the Chains – Hochschild (2006)
The White Man's Burden – Easterly (2007)
Does Foreign Aid Really Work? – Riddell (2008)
Famine Crimes – De Waal (2009)
Dead Aid – Moyo (2010)
Poor Economics – Banerjee and Duflo (2011)
One Illness Away – Krishna (2011)
Getting Better – Kenny (2012)
Poor Numbers – Jerven (2013)
The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development – Andrews (2013)
Capital - Piketty (2014)
A few other, useful reads:
The Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck (1939)
A Bell for Adano – Hersey (1944)
A Theory of Justice – Rawls (1971)
The Scramble for Africa – Pakenham (1992)
All Things Fall Apart – Achebe (1994)
Seeing Like a State – Scott (1998)
King Leopold's Ghost – Hochschild (1999)
The Road to Hell – Maren (2002)
Letting Them Die – Campbell (2003)
Cultivating Development – Mosse (2004)
No One Can Stop the Rain – Moorhouse and Cheng (2005)
The Origin of Wealth – Beinhocker (2007)
An Imperfect Offering – Orbinsky (2008)
World Poverty and Human Rights – Pogge (2008)
Mountains beyond Mountains – Kidder (2009)
The Wisdom of Whores – Pisani (2009)
Partner to the Poor – Farmer (2010)
The Idea of Justice – Sen (2011)
Why Nations Fail –Acemoglu and Robinson (2012)
Humanity – Glover (2012)
From Poverty to Power – Green (2012)
The Quest for Prosperity – Lin (2012)
Adapt – Harford (2012)
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? – Abu-Lughod (2013)
The State of Africa – Meredith (2013)
The Almost Revolution – Carothers and Gramont (2013)
