The Bridge to a Global Middle Class: Development, Trade and International Finance

by Walter Russell Mead (Editor), Sherle R. Schwenninger (Editor)

The Bridge to a Global Middle Class compiles a unique series of papers originally commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations in the wake of the financial crises of 1997-1998. This thought-provoking retrospective culls the views of economists, international financial institutions, Wall Street, organized labor and varying public-interest organizations on the issue of how to fortify our global financial infrastructure. Their effort is the culmination of an 18-month study - The Project on Development, Trade, and International Finance - that seeks to encourage the evolution of middle-class oriented economic development in emerging market countries. In addressing the world economic problems that led to the crises and examining methods to improve the workings of the world's financial markets, they offer ideas, policy recommendations, and suggest the concrete forms these might take, in the drive to transition the world economy toward strategies that offer the developing world an improved standard of living.
These papers make a convincing case for middle-class-oriented economic development as the key to global prosperity and stability. U.S. and international policy-makers will find these insightful discussions valuable in forming new policy and providing the appropriate stimulus for economic development in emerging economies.

665 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2002

About the author

American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and previously taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He is also the Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine and a Distinguished Scholar at the Hudson Institute.
From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure.
Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. Over the years he has contributed to a wide variety of leading American journals ranging from Mother Jones and GQ to the Wall Street Journal. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs.
Mead is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale, where he received prizes for history, debate, and his translation of New Testament Greek. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and often speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. He is a founding board member of New America, and also serves on the board of Freedom House.