Ida Greaves – A pioneer development economist by Barbara Ingham (2024) New York: Routledge DOI: 10.43224/9781003393825

This biographical study of the little-known Barbados born female economist, Ida Cecil Greaves, describes a remarkable career which unfolded over the first half of the twentieth century. Ida Greaves was born in 1907 and we learn that her education and career took her from the Caribbean to England, to Canada, to the United States, to South America and West Africa. The book describes her early years and education in Barbados and England, her studies at McGill University, Canada, her doctoral research at the London School of Economics and her academic career which included appointments at Harvard and Colombia and the London School of Economics. She acted as an economic adviser to the Colonial Office in London, working with the Caribbean economist and Nobel laureate, Arthur Lewis, and worked briefly for the United Nations in New York. The research underlying this important and neglected biography provides rich detail on the socio-political and historical context of the time. We read about the personalities and institutions that provided the backdrop to Ida Greaves’s academic achievements, the barriers she had to overcome as a female academic and the battles she was part of.