This introduction article provides a brief history of development studies, including its main challenges and critiques through the years. Based on this, we provide some thoughts on what the future of development studies might look like. There has been a certain continuity of themes in development, with certain ideas coming in and out of fashion. We expect to see more of this trend in the future. We are also hopeful about the necessary global view of development studies, as the Sustainable Development Goals have set the precedent for the move from the ‘South’ to global development goals. In this article we also provide a short summary of the nine articles in this IDS Bulletin, each tackling the history of a certain topic in development. We draw out the common themes of these development topics, providing complexity, nuance and challenge to existing paradigms.