The author of The White Man’s Burden is a development economist and a professor of economics at New York University (NYU) and codirector of the NYU’s Development Research Institute. Throughout the book, he uses his experiences as a former World Bank employee and his observations working within the international aid system to critique the West’s approach to assisting the developing world, including the failures that it continues to perpetuate. Using extensive data and research spanning from the history of colonization to the effects of a free market, he evaluates the current approach to international development, deeming it a haphazard attempt to satisfy utopian ideals instead of a search for a solutions that would be worthy of the resources spent and effective for the people that receive the aid.