The intellectual trajectory of Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician, brings us through many of the major issues in the world economy and politics of the 20th century. This new volume explores Myrdal's work on three major themes:

What is then the relevance of these themes today? In times when financial crisis threatens to block international and domestic economies, when the European Union's promises of prosperity and cooperation seems to be severely threatened and when there is a large consensus that current modes of economic development are ecologically unsustainable: can we find ways of transcending seemingly intractable dilemmas? These questions will be discussed in the final part of the book.