50 years of 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' Book Review
6th July, 2022 at 1:18PM
42 years ago on June 13th 1980, Pan-African Marxist revolutionary Dr. Walter Rodney was assassinated. He would have turned 80 this year. His canonical works continue to be a testament to the desire of the human condition for liberation and redemption. From the ghettos of Guyana to the slums of Nairobi, Rodney's message endures. 50 years after the publication of his magnum opus How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, the relevance of his work prevails and manifests on the continent everyday, everywhere. Rodney discusses the concept of (un)development, relating it to a society's ability to determine and regulate their internal and external relations. Walter Rodney rejects the bourgeois perspective that understands development as a solely economic affair. In the book, he explains that once two vastly different societies come into contact, it is no longer possible to just examine their respective developments independently. It is an unequal equilibrium."African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labor. That is an integral part of underdevelopment in the contemporary sense."This book gave me a historical analysis that was missing in my social studies classes. It is replete with facts, figures, timelines and evidence. It calls upon generations of Africans to shun the western analysis of their material conditions as a natural phenomena and to question the myth of development on the continent.If you are curious about how Africa got to where it is, then this book is for you.
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