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 first two sections, "The European Slave Trade as a Basic Factor in African Underdevelopment" and "Technical Stagnation and Distortion of the African Economy in the Pre-Colonial Epoch" of Chapter 4: Europe and the Roots of African Underdevelopment - To 1885.
Next 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.
I feel like rodney is mandatory reading to fully understand historical materialism. He pretty much fully answers the last part of marxs theory that he was yet to be able to write before passing
The connections he's making are great. How Europeans became middlemen and actually broke up economic integration between African regions. I don't have it in front of me, but his idea on African communities in isolation didn't have a large enough market, so local industry was stifled really hit me. It made it the idea of modern AES seem much more significant.