Beginning with the US role in the design and start-up of the bank, Gwin describes the ebb and flow of US support for the bank: the increasing activism of congress in US World Bank policy starting in the 1970s, the breakdown in the bipartisan character of US support for the Bank in the early Reagan years of the 1980s, followed by renewed US attention in response to the debt crisis, and the entry into the bank of Russia and other transforming economies. The book disputes both those who see the Bank as under the thumb of the United States and those who see it as unresponsive to US concerns. What it reveals is more concurrence than controversy between the Bank and its largest share-holder on matters of broad policy and on most lending decisions. But the book also highlights constant, but not always consistent efforts by the US to pressure the Bank to lend (or not to lend) to specific countries or specific activities that it favours (or opposes). Overall, Gwin suggests that US policy toward the Worls Bank has always reflected an underlying ambivalence toward both development assisstance and multilateral cooperation.
As a result, US policy in the Bank has been erratic - often reflecting the swings in US politics and foreign policy rather than presenting a clear and coherent view of the development financing role of the World Bank and a rigorous concern for the effectiveness of Bank operations.