Sir Arthur Lewis was the first development economist, the first Afro-Caribbean to hold a professorial chair at a British university and the first black man to win the Nobel prize for economics. However, he believed his contributions to the well-being of the poor through social and political activism were as important as his economics.

Barbara Ingham is Honorary Research Associate at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London.
Paul Mosley is Professor of Economics at the University of Sheffield