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A book-length study about the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and its development of dependency theory in post-World War II Latin America.

This book project is a history of dependency theory and the production of ideas about economic development in Latin America during the post-WWII era. Dependency theory has circulated as product of Marxism and shorthand of imperialism, obscuring the project of the network of Latin American economists and sociologists, diplomats and policymakers in which it flourished. Focusing on the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL in Spanish and Portuguese) my project traces the efforts of development experts to bring about economic development and social change and examines the formation of the politics of expertise in the region. Driven by policy questions and political dilemmas, cepalinos formulated a new vocabulary of development –such as the concepts of center-periphery and dependency– that despite its provocative connotation offered a critique of the regional and global left.