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Subaltern Stakes
If the post-colonial theory that emerged as a militant intellectual project in the 80s has faltered over the past decade, against a backdrop of actual imperialist excursions, Vivek Chibber’s critical intervention in the field has ignited fresh debate around it. Timothy Brennan asks whether an effective challenge can be mounted without tackling the theory’s amnesia more directly.
Che Guevera and the Congo
“It’s Che Guevara time again in the pleasure gardens of the West, as publishers and television companies gear themselves up for the thirtieth anniversary of the guerrilla leader’s death in 1997. We’ve already had the early motorcycle diaries, published all over Europe in 1995, and no less than . . .” read more
'In the Tropics There is No Sin': Sexuality and Gay-Lesbian Movements in the Third World
“Same-sex erotic behaviour is virtually universal in human societies. Few societies that have been carefully studied have been found to yield no evidence of same-sex eroticism. One survey found that in forty-nine out of the seventy-six societies it examined, some form of same-sex sexual behaviour was socially acceptable. . . .” read more
Third World Industrialization: 'Global Fordism' or a New Model?
“From the 1960s to the 1970s, industrial output in almost all Third World countries grew rapidly. Growth was especially fast in a subset of developing countries that can be called ‘late industrializers’, countries which industrialized without the competitive asset of being able to monopolize an original technology. Late . . .” read more
Peasants and Democracy in Africa
“The contemporary crisis in Africa is having contradictory political effects. On the one hand, the increasing subordination of the continent’s political life to the calculus of factional interests ensures that even cabinet reshuffles become violent affairs, tragi-comic ‘revolutions’. On the other hand, the deepening socio-economic crisis of the . . .” read more
William Shawcross’s Cambodian Crusade
“William Shawcross is renowned for his controversial Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (1979). His latest book, The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience, is a study of the use and abuse of aid in one emergency situation—that of Cambodia after the fall of . . .” read more
How Monetarism Has Choked Third World Industrialization
“The thirteenth of August 1982. The default of a major Third World debtor, long expected to be the overture to a world financial collapse, burst like a thunderbolt in a sky heavy with clouds. Mexico announced that it was suspending payments, and all the other major borrowers, and . . .” read more
Capitalism and Socialism in East Asia
“Since 1945 East Asia has been the centre of the world struggle between capitalism and socialism. On the one hand, five victorious revolutions against capitalism have seized and retained state power in all or a substantial part of a national territory. On the other hand, and contrary to . . .” read more
Intellectual Underdevelopment
“Study of economics, as distinct from the study of political economy, is generally thought to be concerned with choice between different uses of scarce resources and the interacting results of choices that are made. Some months ago, Dudley Seers, now Director General in the Ministry of Overseas Development, . . .” read more
The New Nation-States
“The ‘Third World’ is that vast region, stretching over parts of three continents, which has left behind the past but not yet arrived in the present; which belongs neither to the capitalist camp nor to the communist, but feels the pull of both; which is staring about it . . .” read more
The Myths of Counter-Insurgency
“More myths and fantasies seem to have arisen in regard to guerrilla warfare than about any other aspect of contemporary history. For many revolutionaries it has assumed a positively romantic aura, particularly since the bearded ones of the 26th of July Movement swept with dash and verve out . . .” read more
Growth, Trade and Aid
“When economists first became interested in the poverty of the underdeveloped countries, they concentrated their attention upon the supply side of the problem. What were the barriers in the way of increasing productivity? What were the significant scarcities of economic resources? Of the resources that were available, what . . .” read more
Agronomy and Society
“Historically, as well as logically, “development” precedes “underdevelopment”: the condition of the one was to a large extent the creation of the other. Whatever the importance of continental distinctions in social structure and civilization in the medieval period, it is clear that the steady expansion overseas of post-Renaissance . . .” read more
Guerilla Warfare
“One has become familiar with the demented logic and the deadened language of prominent American nuclear strategists. This book initiates us into a new branch of military mythology: “counter-guerilla warfare” and its associated techniques. It proves almost as frightening as the theory of nuclear strategy proper, since it . . .” read more
Revolution of the Third World
“the alarming thing about the state of the antinuclear campaign is that so much of the discussion turns upon questions of tactics—how to break the silence-barrier or to raise consciousness of the issues. It is thus a discussion about means rather than ends. The ends remain undiscussed. . . .” read more