Background
Scudder, Thayer was born on August 4, 1930 in New Haven. Son of Townsend III and Virginia (Boody) Scudder.
('Neither Pollyanna nor Prophet of Doom, Professor Scudder...)
'Neither Pollyanna nor Prophet of Doom, Professor Scudder has drawn on his 55 years of international experience and presented a clear, hard hitting, extraordinarily well documented analysis of the critical and urgent global challenges that face humankind and of the transformations that will be required to meet those challenges. This is a very important book. It should be read by an informed public, but most particularly by leaders and policy makers of the world's governments, international organizations, educational and religious institutions.' - Lee Talbot, George Mason University, US 'This is an extraordinary, bold, and exceptionally well thought out prospectus on the next century of the human condition. Declining living standards, consequential to the pervasive pursuit of growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product, is a central theme that is thoroughly documented and engagingly articulated. The decisive role in the decline of living standards played by global threats including poverty, fundamentalism, environmental degradation, wars, and excess consumption, is compellingly presented from the perspective of the author's unique career.' - Burton Singer, Princeton University, US 'This impressive study of the progressive impoverishment of the world's resources speaks with the authority of Thayer Scudder's fifty years of experience with international programs for technological development, especially those that involve river basin development and resulting population displacement and resettlement. Case studies from different continents provide the evidence for the likelihood that the majority in future generations will lead more meager lives than their twentieth century ancestors. He points to what has gone wrong in our approach to the world and its resources and to the measures necessary to offset the damage already caused. If only citizens have the political will to adopt them.' - Elizabeth Colson, University of California, Berkeley, US 'This is an important book. It has to be listened to, and for two reasons. The first is the expertise of the author: the guy has been there: this is an anthropologist who is constantly in the field. And he possesses a wide range of skills: part ethnographer, part biologist, as much a humanist as a scientist. The combination of experience and expertise is as powerful as it is unusual. Sadly, a second force in favor of this book is the temper of the times. The giddiness of the last century has been driven underground by the perils of this.' - Robert H. Bates, Harvard University, US Global threats can be expected to cause a global environmental crisis and declining living standards for most people. Threats analyzed include poverty, cultural, economic, political and religious fundamentalism, consumption, population increase and degradation of the global ecosystem. Chapters on the United States, China and Zambia illustrate difficulties that high, middle and low income countries face in addressing such threats. The final chapter examines the type of transformational change required just to reduce the rate and magnitude of future decline.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184844849X/?tag=2022091-20
(Viewed by some as symbols of progress and by others as in...)
Viewed by some as symbols of progress and by others as inherently flawed, large dams remain one of the most contentious development issues on Earth. Building on the work of the now defunct World Commission on Dams, Thayer Scudder wades into the debate with unprecedented authority. Employing the Commission's Seven Strategic priorities, Scudder charts the 'middle way' forward by examining the impacts of large dams on ecosystems, societies and political economies. He also analyses the structure of the decision-making process for water resource development and tackles the highly contentious issue of dam-induced resettlement, illuminated by a statistical analysis of 50 cases.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844073386/?tag=2022091-20
Scudder, Thayer was born on August 4, 1930 in New Haven. Son of Townsend III and Virginia (Boody) Scudder.
Educated at Harvard University (Bachelor of Arts 1952, Doctor of Philosophy 1960), he did a postdoctorate in African Studies, Anthropology and Ecology at the London School of Economics, followed by positions with the Rhodes-Livingston Institute for Social Research in Northern Rhodesia 1956-1957 and again in 1962-1963, and a post at the American University in Cairo in 1961-1962.
He joined the Caltech faculty in that year. His work on socioeconomic issues and infrastructure development associated with river basin development, forced relocation, and refugee reintegration has made him a world leader in these fields. Large dams are one of the world’s most controversial, divisive and expensive development issues, and Scudder is the world"s leading expert on dams and relocation effects.
He is a former commissioner on the World Commission on Dams.
In addition to expertise and special interest in regional development, irrigated and rainfed agriculture, pioneer settlement, community-based natural resource management, and impacts of large-scale river basin development projects on low income populations, Scudder has focused on systematic long-term studies of low income human communities. The most classic of his long-term studies has been carried out with anthropologist Elizabeth Colson among the Gwembe Tonga of Zambia.
Author Jacques Leslie devotes a third of his narrative nonfiction book Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005) to a portrait of Scudder. The section includes a visit to the Zambian resettlement village where many Gwembe Tonga now live and follows Scudder as he inspects dam projects in Lesotho and Botswana.
('Neither Pollyanna nor Prophet of Doom, Professor Scudder...)
(Viewed by some as symbols of progress and by others as in...)
His 2005 book "The Future of Large Dams" covers aspects of large dams and development including economics, politics, environmental risk, energy, agriculture, and human displacement and resettlement. He has undertaken studies on sustainable resource use in Africa, India, Nepal, Jordan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the United States, and served on a number of independent review panels for dam projects in Africa and Asia.
Member American Anthropological Association (1st recipient Solon T. Kimball award for public and applied anthropology 1984, Edward J. Lehman award 1991), Society Applied Anthropology (Bronislaw Malinowski award 1999), American Alpine Club.
Married Mary Eliza Drinker, August 26, 1950. Children: Mary Eliza, Alice Thayer.