As a branch of sociology, development studies itself is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, mainly focusing on issues related to developing countries. Its emergence in the second half of the 20th century is in a large part due to increasing concern about economic prospect for the third world after decolonization. Immediately after World War II, development economics, a branch of economics, arose out of previous studies. By 1960s, an increasing number of development economists realized that economics alone is inadequate in meeting challenging issues such as political effectiveness and provision of education. Development studies appeared as a result of this, initially aiming at exploring the inter-relationship between economics and politics.The teachers and students in College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD) of China Agricultural University (CAU) have long been involved in the activities of teaching, research and practice related to development studies. During this process, they have accumulated huge amount of valuable experience and expertise. This textbook has selected the most common 10 topics of this field. We hope the compilation of this book may assist undergraduate students from both linguistic and professional dimensions.