This essay presents a review and compilation of the work of Jean Philippe Peemans, renowned Belgian intellectual (lawyer, economist, and historian) on the modernization of the world and the development of peoples. The thematic lines that run through his academic work are based on a critique of the meso-ideology of modernization, the avatars of real development with respect to development theory, the South South-North dialogue, and his proposal on the development of peoples as an alternative to the different cycles of economic modernization. The interdisciplinary analysis in Professor Peemans's work and his sensitivity toward the world's peoples from the different continents, marks an unorthodox approach to confronting the challenge that is implicit for meeting the comprehensive needs of most of the world's population, while the social and economic distance between the North and South, as well as the internal distances within each of these geographic divisions, continues to grow.