In writing Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places, economist Paul Collier concedes that “I had to face the discomfiting recognition that ideas I had regarded as established truths of economics, and indeed taught, needed radical revision.” Indeed, Collier a well-known mainstream developmental economist, uses his new book to indict his own profession — in addition to shortsighted politicians and elitist bureaucrats — for helping to create the radically unequal and inegalitarian world in which we live.

Collier’s argument is that a combination of shameful neglect and woefully counterproductive policies imposed from above by national and international political and economic elites has divided the world in two. On one side, there are successful places that have thrived in the face of globalization (generally urban centers with high concentrations of knowledge workers); on the other are “left behind” places that have been largely cut adrift by their more prosperous counterparts.

Left behind places are extremely varied, ranging from the “bottom billion” — consisting of sixty countries that have fallen further behind the rest of the world over the past few decades — to places within middle- and high-income countries that have been left behind relative to the rest of the country. This latter camp includes a range of regions from England’s South Yorkshire to the Caribbean coast of Colombia.