Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (1968)

As his ECE decade drew to a close, Myrdal solicited American foundations for support for a new and substantial research venture. In his prospectus, he described its objective as follows: to make ‘a balanced appraisal of the situation in Southern and South-eastern Asia as it is developing under the influences from outside and from within …. A main emphasis of the study … would be on the [economic] problems of the region as a whole …. (The) economic potentialities will be viewed in their social and political context. Thus the study will necessarily include an analysis of the new nationalism in the region, as it is conditioned by social, cultural, religious and racial conflicts.’₁ This was an extension of the position he had articulated in writings on the prospects for national and international economic ‘integration’ in the later 1950s. At this juncture, his conception of the projected study directed attention to the way underdeveloped countries in the South Asian region were or were not shaping a self-confident economic nationalism which might ultimately be translated into economic integration internationally. There was a hint here as well that the potentialities for coordinated planning among various South Asian countries would be investigated.