year process of consultation and research in nine countries across four continents’. The countries were Bangladesh, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The Report attempts to provide limited information and summary assertions in support of often strong claims, crucial arguments and important criticisms. The volume would have benefited from a comprehensive review of macroeconomic and distributional effects of adjustment and other national trends on a comparative basis, greater inclusion of supporting details and other evidence for claims and assertions made, as well as greater editing out of repetition and redundancy. A companion volume making the major arguments in a less analytical and more literary style, perhaps relying on interviews and views expressed during the national and other forums organized as part of the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) process, would have served as an effective supplement.