Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Poorer Nations

Publisher page: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1150-the-poorer-nations

Kindle edition: The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South

In The Darker Nations, Vijay Prashad provided an intellectual history of the Third World and traced the rise and fall of the Non-Aligned Movement. With The Poorer Nations, Prashad takes up the story where he left off.

Since the ’70s, the countries of the Global South have struggled to build political movements. Prashad analyzes the failures of neoliberalism, as well as the rise of the BRICS countries, the World Social Forum, issuebased movements like Via Campesina, the Latin American revolutionary revival—in short, efforts to create alternatives to the neoliberal project advanced militarily by the US and its allies and economically by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and other instruments of the powerful. Just as The Darker Nations asserted that the Third World was a project, not a place, The Poorer Nations sees the Global South as a term that properly refers not to geographical space but to a concatenation of protests against neoliberalism.

In his foreword to the book, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali writes that Prashad “has helped open the vista on complex events that preceded today’s global situation and standoff.” The Poorer Nations looks to the future while revising our sense of the past.

Noam Chomsky: “It is startling how insulated the West has remained from the thinking, achievements, and struggles of the great majority of the world's people. This lucid and well-informed study reveals how much there is to learn from this rich and vibrant record.”

Susanne Soederberg, Professor in Global Development Studies, Queens University, Canada: “Vijay Prashad has courageously and meticulously forged a fascinating study that challenges mainstream, Western narratives of world history. In this provocative and sweeping exploration, the injustices and subjugation of peoples in the global South are not only made visible but political.”

Eduardo Galeano: "Vijay Prashad helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media.”

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

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