The White Man's Burden

Easterly contrasted top-down planners, who set grand aid targets from afar, with searchers, who find and deliver what poor people actually demand. Drawing on decades at the World Bank, he catalogued the failures of big-push aid and utopian schemes, arguing instead for accountability, feedback, and piecemeal experimentation. The book became a central statement of the aid-skeptic side in his running debate with Jeffrey Sachs.

Its legacy. It anchored the case for humility and evaluation in aid, feeding the rise of randomized trials.