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 third and last sections, “Education for Underdevelopment” and “Development by Contradiction” of Chapter 6: Colonialism as a System for Underdeveloping Africa. You can also read the postscript if you wish.
This is the final week of this book! After this week, we will take the next two weeks off for people to catch up and post observations and questions in this thread. This means we will move on to the next book on the week beginning October 20th.
Thanks for hosting this, again!
For suggestions, I have 3 I would like to see discussed, though they overlap with Rodney’s and Hudson’s work so I am okay with skipping these for now:
Kwame Nkrumah’s Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism
Cheng Enfu’s Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism
J. Sakai’s Settlers
Kwame - well, that was before Rodney so I suppose we see similar things hashed out but it’s fine with me
Cheng - well maybe - seems new to me.
Sakai - this is gonna be a hot one, innit? Very polemical but not without justification - reading about Bacon’s rebellion was a helluva ride; settlers gonna settle
and genocide natives, even their alliesAll would be worthy of discussion, I think. Cheng is closer to Hudson’s analysis, and reading Nkrumah with Rodney in mind may add to our appreciation of each’s work. Sakai is gonna be hot, for sure, but I think even if some of the conclusions may be unpopular the historical thread is worth discussing and diving into.
We may cover Settlers eventually but I am a little nervous about it.
I’ve heard of the first book but not the second. I’ve looked for it online and found an essay/article with that title; is that the extent of it, or is it a wider book?
I think Settlers is important reading. It’s inflammatory, yes, but it holds influence in the leftist canon and is worth discussing. What holds up? What doesn’t? How have conditions changed since it was written, how have they remained the same? I think it’s more valuable in a group discussion than individually read, IMO, which is why I brought it up.
As for the Cheng Enfu work, here it is on Prolewiki. It was published in Monthly Review, but it’s much too long to be a basic article, it could be read over 2-3 weeks I suppose. It’s significant because it was written in 2021, so it’s based on recent conditions. It won’t have the impact of the current trade war, or how the Russo-Ukrainian War or the resistance in Palestine post Al-Aqsa Flood have impacted imperialism, but it touches on a lot of what Hudson laid out decades prior.
Just suggestions, I’m happy with whatever the group or you choose.