ABSTRACT
In July 1962, delegates from more than thirty nations met in Cairo to attend the Conference on Questions of Economic Development. The participating countries included not only allies of the United States such as Saudi Arabia, but also communist Cuba, whose leader Fidel Castro had agreed only weeks earlier to install Soviet missiles on Cuban soil. The conference was led, however, by the non-aligned states India, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, and the host country of the United Arab Republic (UAR). In addressing the assembled delegates, UAR president Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser cited the desire of poor peoples around the world for economic development. “These peoples,” Nasser declared, “are now fi rmly determined to compensate for the past and catch up with the future under circumstances of rapid progress.”1 Nasser’s words evoke the universal concern with economic development during the Cold War, particularly in the decolonizing states of the “third world.” His speech and its setting also point to some of the critical issues that historians have addressed in studying postwar development. By portraying development as “catch[ing] up with the future,” the Egyptian leader proclaimed his faith in linear historical progress, a shibboleth among postwar offi cials and intellectuals who otherwise disagreed over how best to promote development. Indeed, members of Nasser’s audience were sharply divided over how best to achieve the “rapid progress” of which he spoke. They diff ered over whether to pursue the liberal development model off ered by the United States, to adopt one of the rival communist models promoted by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, or to devise another, “third way” approach. Their decisions about which path to follow carried heavy implications in terms of securing their countries’ economic futures and political independence. Given the global interest in the problem articulated by Nasser, historians have therefore focused on the ideas and confl icts surrounding development in an international system dominated by the superpower struggle.
