Whose Story?: Reporting the Developing World After the Cold War

Hans B. Neumann teaches history at Scarborough College, University of
Toronto.

This book summarizes the findings of a conference, organized around the
theme of “reporting the developing world after the Cold War,” that
was held in Regina in October 1992 and was attended predominantly by
print journalists and academics from the developing nations. The
summaries of panel discussions and speeches are divided into separate
chapters: Africa; the Caribbean and Latin America; Asia and the Pacific;
and China. Three brief concluding chapters articulate common themes that
emerged from the conference.

The result is a fascinating and enriching read. Resonating throughout
is a fear on the part of the developing world that, with the end of the
Cold War, it will be forgotten both in terms of “developmental
assistance” from the Western industrialized nations and in terms of
mass-media coverage. A number of the participants expressed even deeper
fears of a new age of Western economic and cultural domination in the
absence of a counterweight to a global market economy based on the
Western model (Japan included).

Whose Story? provides a rare and colorful glimpse into the attitudes
and perspectives of those who will be most directly affected by the
mechanisms of the “new world order.”