ABSTRACT
The recent revival of concern with development in the so-called ‘overseas territories’, after 150 years of virtual neglect, will undoubtedly be recorded some day as one of the transcendental events of the postwar era. This phenomenon undoubtedly had much to do with fundamental changes in the political map of the world. But the ‘academic scribbler’ who will be among those most remembered in that context will just as undoubtedly be the man being honored in this volume. Both by means of his sometimes neglected encyclopedic contribution, The Theory of Economic Growth (1955), which managed to touch virtually every base and yet convey important insights, and via his celebrated ‘Unlimited supplies of labor’ articles (1954 and 1958), Arthur Lewis has been heavily responsible for imbuing this subject of inquiry with renewed respectability and intellectual vigor. His contributions to a deeper understanding of history, of development planning, of North-South relations, even of the philosophical underpinnings of growth as a desirable objective, are many – and have been expounded by Bhagwati and Findlay, earlier in this volume. But what we would like to focus on here is Lewis’s major single intellectual contribution seen in the context of both its Classical roots and its modern analytical extensions.
