UNDERDEVELOPED

AFRICA

Walter Rodney

HOW EUROPE

Rodneys classic study of the impact of European capitalism on the continent of

Africa continues to provoke, inspire, and educate it resonates more than ever before.

Angela Davis University of California, Santa Cruz

Walter Rodney was born in Guyana in 1942. He taught at the University of Dar es Salaam and is recognised as one of the Caribbeans most brilliant minds. Combining scholarship with activism, he became a voice for the oppressed and was the leading figure in the resistance against the authoritarian government in Guyana. In 1980, aged 38, Rodney was assassinated.

If Walter Rodneys assassins were under the impression that they could arrest the flow of his ideas by destroying his body, they could have not been more wrong. Three decades later, Rodneys classic study of the impact of European capitalism on the continent of Africa continues to provoke, inspire, and educate. In the context of the new resistance to global capitalism, his captivating analysis resonates more than ever before.

Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa helped to transform the thinking of a generation of activists. Using a concrete analysis Rodney examined the impact of slavery and colonialism on the continent, thereby laying the foundation for strategies for genuine liberation. Todays republication should not only inspire a new generation of activists and scholars but also help in the development of updated strategies for challenging neo-liberal globalization and neo-colonialism.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., international activist and writer, co-author of Solidarity

Divided

This book is for all bold enough to envision an end to capitalist exploitation and the rise of a safer planet, a stronger Africa and a better world in the 21st century and beyond.

Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for

Policy Studies

In this book, Walter Rodney admonished us forty years ago that,Not only are there African accomplices inside the imperialist system, but every African has a responsibility to understand the system and work for its overthrow. The republishing of this book is another reminder of our responsibility.

Horace Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Political

Science at Syracuse University

This classic work of black political thought, political economy, and African history inspired scholars and political activists in the struggle against colonialism and its misrepresentations of the past. I applaud this reissue, which should bring Rodneys prescient analysis to a new generation struggling from below, in whose hands, he would have reminded us, is no less than the future of humankind.

Lewis R. Gordon, Author of An Introduction to Africana Philosophy

How EuropE Underdeveloped

AfricA

Through the voices of the peoples of Africa and the global South, Pambazuka Press and Pambazuka News disseminate analysis and debate on the struggle for

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analysts and activists.

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CODESRIA www.codesria.org

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is an independent pan-African organisation whose principal

objectives are to facilitate research, promote research-based publishing and create multiple forums geared towards the exchange of views and information among

African researchers. All these are aimed at reducing the fragmentation of research on the continent through the creation of thematic research networks that

cut across linguistic and regional boundaries.

How EuropE Underdeveloped

AfricA

walter rodney

An imprint of Fahamu

Published 2012 by Pambazuka Press, an imprint of Fahamu Cape Town, Dakar, Nairobi and Oxford

www.pambazukapress.org www.fahamu.org www.pambazuka.org

and

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Available in the United States of America from Black Classic Press, Inc, PO Box 13414, Baltimore, MD 21203

Copyright 1972 Walter Rodney Copyright 2012 Patricia Rodney

Published in 1972 by Bogle-LOuverture Publications, London and Tanzania Publishing House, Dar es Salaam

First published in the United States 1974 by Howard University Press Revised edition 1981

Introduction copyright 1981 by Vincent Harding, William Strickland and Robert Hill

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any manner, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without written permission from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-906387-94-5 paperback ISBN: 978-1-906387-95-2 ebook pdf

ISBN: 978-0-85749-097-1 ebook epub ISBN: 978-0-85749-098-8 ebook Kindle

www.walterrodneyfoundation.org.

The Foundation continues Rodneys legacy and is currently supporting programs in Guyana, Ghana and Tanzania.

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Addition to the Preface

The changes in this new edition of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa include a new cover, an updated preface, and a brief description of the Walter Rodney Foundations mission and purpose. The actual text has not been altered or changed in any way, other than for typographical corrections.

It is extraordinary that Walters work is as relevant today as when it was first written. The African continent continues to face similar issues to those he so profoundly wrote about. The text provides a framework for examining not only the role of developed countries but that of Africa in shaping its own relationship and continued dependence on the Western Hemisphere. The lessons are also applicable to other underdeveloped/developing nations as they examine their own relationship of exploitation with developed countries in this contempo-rary age of globalization.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was first published by Tanzania Publishing House and Bogle LOuverture Publications in 1972. The text was most recently published by Howard University Press from 1989 until 2011. In 2011, the Rodney family decided to work with Black Classic Press and Pambazuka Press to ensure that the book and its message become more accessible to readers worldwide as they explore the nature of their exploitation. This was Walters hope and purpose.

Patricia Rodney

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Page 289: Index

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Order your copy from www.pambazukapress.org

African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions

Edited by Firoze Manji and Sokari Ekine

The tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these as Arab revolutions. But concurrent uprisings in other parts of the African continent have had much less attention.

African Awakening is unique in offering incisive contributions from writers and activists across the continent analysing the protests, strikes and other actions in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cte dIvoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Western Sahara and Zimbabwe as well as in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

These essays reveal struggles that constitute a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority and present the 2011 uprisings in their African context.

A fine collection of insurgent voices and analyses from a continental rebellion

Raj Patel, award-winning writer, activist and academic

2012paperback978-0-85749-021-6also available in pdf, epuband Kindle formats

Order your copy from www.pambazukapress.org

Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global Failure

Samir Amin

Samir Amin explains with great clarity the complex changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including the transformations in Eastern Europe and in the world economy, the growth of capitalism in China and the Wests increasingly questioned materialist goals.

He examines the failure of development from a political stand-point with particular emphasis on Africa. The capitalist state in the peripheries cannot provide a basis for further development, it can only exacerbate inequalities. The world needs to be remade based on SouthSouth cooperation, delinking the South from the North. This could lead to a genuinely polycentric world that provides Asia, Africa and Latin America with real scope for development.

One can always rely on Samir Amin to provide us with a provocative guide to forces at work in the global economy.

In Maldevelopment, he offers invaluable insights into the dynamics of the subordination of the economies of the South to the those of

the North in the regime of global capitalism.

Walden Bello, Professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of the Philippines Diliman,

and executive director of Focus on the Global South

2011 paperback 978-1-906387-79-2also available in pdf, epuband Kindle formats

Reclaiming African History

Jacques Depelchin

Depelchins thought-provoking essays (previously published in Pambazuka News and by the Ota Bega Alliance) show that through African histories it is possible to reconnect to all the histories of those who have been disconnected: shackdwellers the poor, the dispossessed His analysis of African history demonstrates how peoples have been forced into looking at their own histories through a shattered mirror, deliberately and forcefully crushed so as to render the exercise practically impossible. But history could be written in a way that would free it from European and US historical intellectual frameworks.

Reclaiming African History enables a reconnection to humanity not only for the sake of Africa, but for the sake of those who did everything to bury African history.

The value of this small and affordable book is to stimulate a re-think of Africans predicament and an understanding of its historical causes... Important for all interested in African and

diasporan studies, history, and politics, with an additional salience for those such as social activists, NGOs, and journalists concerned

to comment and act on African crises.

Peter Limb, The African Book Publishing Record

Order your copy from www.pambazukapress.org

2011paperback 978-1-906387-98-3 also available in pdf, epub and Kindle formats

Walter Rodneys groundbreaking analysis, republished in conjunc-tion with the Walter Rodney Foundation and with a new preface by Patricia Rodney, shows how the wealthy countries and international capitalism bear major responsibility for impoverishing Africa. This revolutionary text remains an essential introduction to the dynamics of Africas relations with the West.

A milestone in the history of Africa thinking for itself. Samir Amin, director of the Forum du Tiers Monde (Third World Forum), Dakar

Walter Rodneys magisterial opus is recognised globally as a landmark in African studies, not to mention the history of colonialism and imperialism. Beautifully written and expertly argued, it is that rare book that can be called a classic. It belongs on every bookshelf.Gerald Horne, historian, author, activist

A masterpiece of historical analysis that has remained both pointed and relevant in spite of the passage of time.Adebayo Olukoshi, director of the UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning

As the world capitalist system is showing signs of collapse, Walter Rodneys brilliant study is re-emerging as a classic which Pan-Africanists should read and re-read. Issa G. Shivji, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Research Chair in Pan-African Studies, University of Dar es Salaam

Every person in Africa and of African descent, and every European, would be the richer for studying this text and taking its lessons to heart. Norman Girvan, Professor Emeritus, University of the West Indies

This book is a legendary classic that galvanised freedom fighters around the world. We miss Walter Rodney but we do have his great witness and work!Cornel West, philosopher, author, critic, activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America

Walter Rodneys seminal and revolutionary text has nurtured generations of radical thinkers all over the world and has become prophetic in its scathing relevance for todays militarised globalisation and the new hi-tech corporate scramble for Africa.Amina Mama, director of the Women and Gender Studies program, University of California, Davis

An imprint of Fahamu

How Europe Underdeveloped AfricaPrefaceContentsIntroductionChapter I Some Questions on DevelopmentChapter II How Africa Developed before the Coming of the Europeans Up to the Fifteenth CenturyChapter III Africa's Contribution to European Capitalist Development The Pre-Colonial PeriodChapter IV Europe and the Roots of African Underdevelopment To 1885Chapter V Africa's Contribution to the Capitalist Development of Europe The Colonial PeriodChapter VI Colonialism as a System For Underdeveloping AfricaPostscriptIndex