This is a wonderful book by one of the most influential development thinkers. The author presents an entertaining and playful collection of his writings from 1978 to the present, which explore and question words, concepts and conventions used in development practice and by development professionals. There is a wide spectrum of essays, tools, exercises, discussions, diagrams and a handy template for “development bingo”. There are also a number of instances of rhyming verse, through which the author breaks with his usual optimism in order to vent his anger or frustration with pathologies of greed, self-interest and disregard for poor and marginalized people.

This book is easy to dip in and out of, with pieces that are short, readable and (as the title hints) intended to provoke thought, disagreement or self-reflexivity. Its serious themes circle around power relations and how these play out in development practice, the evolution of concepts such as participation and in organizations like the World Bank, arguing for a development practice that balances “people” and “things”.

The book is divided into four sections. The first, “Word Play”, looks at words and vocabularies, poking fun at shifting fashions in the development lexicon and explaining how words matter in framing and forming our perceptions, in revealing mindsets, and in empowering or disempowering those with or without mastery of technical terms and jargon. The second section, “Poverty and Participation”, challenges concepts of poverty, describes a number of empowering participatory methodologies and concludes with a discussion of what can be done at the personal level. Section III, “Aid”, criticizes past and present procedures and practices in aid and points to feasible changes for doing things better. It demands a radical rethink of aid, stemming from the recognition that “where the poor are” has changed dramatically (in 1990, 93 per cent lived in low-income countries; in 2010, almost a billion lived in middle-income countries). The last section, “To Provoke: For Our Future”, touches on gender issues in participation, changing power relations and win−win solutions, and the potent possibilities of immersions. It continues the discussions on words, concepts and development paradigms, presents a vision of future generations brought up, educated, empowered and inspired to transform our world, and ends with a final provocation, inviting readers to find answers to the question “What would it take to eliminate poverty in the world?” Robert Chambers reminds the reader more than once that fun is a human right, and this book will touch a chord and be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of readers.