《经济发展模式比较》一书是阿德尔曼和莫里斯从差不多25年前就已开始进行的一项研究计划的最终成果。该研究计划的第一阶段是探讨大量抽样欠发达国家在不同的发展水平上社会、政治和经济因素的相互关系。接着,对今天的欠发达国家作了大量的研究,并深入到了经济史领域。对经济史的研究,本来是想证实从前一阶段研究中所得出的关于发展过程的结论。历史研究的成果(这些研究成果大约在1978年前后 A Comparison of Economic Development Patterns is the culmination of a research project that Adelman and Morris started from almost 25 years ago. The first phase of the research project is to explore the interrelationships among the social, political and economic factors at different levels of development in a large number of sampled less-developed countries. Then, a great deal of research has been done on today's underdeveloped countries and deepened into the field of economic history. The study of economic history was originally meant to confirm the conclusions drawn from the previous study on the development process. The results of historical research (these research results around about 1978