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Imperialism Reading Group - Imperialism Reading Group - How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Walter Rodney - Week 6

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here.

The book we are currently reading through is How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group, or if you no longer wish to be pinged.

This week, we will be reading the latter two sections, "Continuing Politico-Military Developments in Africa - 1500 to 1885", and "The Coming of Imperialism and Colonialism" of Chapter 4: Europe and the Roots of African Underdevelopment - To 1885.

Next week, we will be reading the first section, "Expatriation of African Surplus under Colonialism", of Chapter 5: Africa's Contribution to the Capitalist Development of Europe - The Colonial Period.

4 comments

  • In sub-Saharan Africa and especially in West Africa, the export of slaves declined most rapidly where Europeans were prepared to buy other commodities. As soon as inhabitants of any region found that they had a product which Europeans were accepting, in place of the former slave trade, those inhabitants put tremendous effort into organizing the alternatives: namely, ivory, rubber, palm products, groundnuts.

    Once more, those efforts demonstrated the determination of a small but decisive proportion of Africans. It was a determination based on the desire to obtain European trade goods, many of which had ceased to be mere curiosities or luxuries, and were regarded instead as necessities.

    Wow, it's almost as if these people act and respond to material conditions, with their own local conditions

    Nonetheless

    Curiously, Europeans often derived the moral justification for imperialism and colonialism from features of the international trade as conducted up to the eve of colonial rule in Africa.

    Little did the local people of Africa know, by this time, over 400 years, and the future Imperialists have but softened their African economies and sharpened their blades, through their wide tech-gaps

    Look out, periphery, here they go...

  • This is a really good book to pair with researching all of the different societies Rodney mentions, it really helps put a more complete picture in your mind of what these societies were/are like.