The book review is published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Review summary
Why do the same dominant ideas appear in radically different parts of the world? What are the material qualities of a particular place that determine its function in a global network of ideational transmission? These are some of the questions that Mayssoun Sukarieh addresses in A Global Idea: Youth, City Networks, and the Struggle for the Arab World, which intervenes in debates at the intersection of geography and development studies with relevance for the broader social sciences as well. Sukarieh’s case study of ideational transmission concerns the ‘youth development complex’, which she defines as ‘a diverse transnational network of state, private sector, civil society, and international development and aid organizations’. She analyses three cities—Washington DC, Amman and Dubai—and their different roles in bringing youth to the fore as the preeminent object of development discourse in the twenty-first century.
Read more about Adam Almqvist's research here.
