摘要：It is unfortunate when a good book is written at a time when its topie is in "retreat" in society. When this happens, the authors frequently lament such a retreat on emotional grounds. To a large extent, the authors of this volume avoid this pitfall, and they must be commended for writing clearly and succinctly about changing regional development policies in seven major countries. A major finding of theirs-that regional development policies are unrelated to the needs of regions but rather are a function of major politieal ideology sweeping across the world-is a bold generalization. With the movement toward neo-Keynesian politicaleconomie thinking in much of the Western world, and now even in most of what was the communist world, a belief in less governmental involvement in both regional and national economies has strongly affected the basis of the regional economie redistribution philosophy. Although there has been no frontal attack on this philosophy-in fact, the European Community CEC) regional development fund, for example, has been growing in recent years, not declining-through neglect regional concerns have been one of the early casualties of this swing to the politieal philosophical right. In their concluding chapter, subtitled "The Rise and Decline of Regional Policy", the authors clearly recognize this as they sum up the results of their different regional studies.
