The great division in the world today, says Michael Lipton in this outstandingly important book, is not between capitalist and communist, black and white, east and west, or even between rich and poor nations. It exists within the poor countries themselves, and it is the division between city and country. In developing countries especially, wealth is drained from the country, where a little investment would produce big increases in desperately needed food production, and channelled into the cities where people who are often far better off put it to far less productive uses.