Enlightened Aid: U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia

308 Pages·2012·0.25 MB·English

by  Amanda Kay McVety

ENLIGHTENED AID
This page intentionally left blank
ENLIGHTENED AID
U . S . D evelopment as F oreign
P olicy in E thiopia
Amanda Kay McVety
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offi ces in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McVety, Amanda Kay.
Enlightened aid : U.S. development as foreign aid policy in Ethiopia / Amanda Kay McVety.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-979691-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Economic assistance, American—Ethiopia—History.
2. Economic development—Finance—Ethiopia—History. 3. Ethiopia—Economic conditions. I. Title.
HC845.M38 2012
338.91′73063—dc23 2011031591

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my parents,
Bruce and Elaine McVety
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction : Th e American Answer 1
1 . Improving Nations 5
2 . A Global Economy 38
3 . Strategic Ethiopia 62
4 . Truman’s Fourth Point 83
5 . Th e Ethiopian Experiment 121
6 . Th e Development Decade 161
7 . Rethinking the “American Answer” 195
Notes 223
Selected Bibliography 265
Index 287
This page intentionally left blank
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped to make this book possible. Th eodora Ayot of North
Park University told a much younger me that she was going to send me to
Africa. She did, and my life was never quite the same. When this project
began taking shape as my dissertation at UCLA, Jessica Wang challenged me
to connect intellectual and diplomatic history in more sophisticated ways,
and Christopher Ehret urged me to think more broadly about Ethiopia’s
place in world history. Aft er graduation, I put the dissertation aside for two
years to focus on my teaching. Th e time apart proved critical as I was able to
restructure the boundaries of the work, stretching it backward to the Scottish
Enlightenment and forward to Ethiopia’s present. During my third year of
teaching, I picked it up again and rewrote it. Many of my colleagues in the
Miami University History Department read and commented on chapter 4 at
a department workshop. Allan Winkler, Erik Jensen, Judith Zinsser, Jeff Kim-
ball, and Carla Pestana read additional chapters at various stages of develop-
ment and provided helpful feedback. I am fortunate to work among such
talented and generous historians. Special thanks must go to Drew Cayton,
who not only off ered insightful comments on chapters, but also helped me to
rethink the intellectual framework of the entire project. I could not have
done it without him. Elizabeth Vitanza graciously provided some valuable
translating. John Lauritz Larsen and Walter Lafeber read sections of the work
and off ered useful criticisms. My anonymous readers at D iplomatic History
helped me to refi ne the arguments presented in chapter 4, and my anonymous
readers at Oxford University Press did the same for all of the chapters. Nancy
Toff and Sonia Tycko at Oxford University Press helped me turn the manu-
script into a book. I am very grateful for all of the assistance. Any errors are
my own.
A dditional thanks must go to the effi cient and knowledgeable archivists at
the numerous museums and libraries that opened their doors to me for