Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism and strategic investment. Reinert suggests that this set of policies in various combinations has driven successful development from Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East. Contemporary economic orthodoxy has been against Reinerts solutions in the modern age but the mood is changing and Reinert is in the vanguard of the new thinking of helping poorer countries develop.

Erik S. Reinert, author of Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (2004), is Professor of Technology, Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and President of The Other Canon Foundation, Norway. He is one of the world's leading heterodox development economists and is based in Norway.