The rise of globalization has inevitably revitalized fields of comparison for state economic success, including measures of Gross Domestic Product, Purchasing Power Parity, Corruption Perceptions Index and inflation rate. For most people, assuming they were born after World War I, these economic measures for the standard of living have dominated the perception of wealthy and impoverished countries. And for the United States, which has the world’s largest economy with $26.85 trillion in nominal GDP, this measure has bolstered its global power and respect.
With this comparative wealth, American exceptionalism was easily born. The term denoted features of American self-understanding as distinctive, unique or exemplary when compared to other modern societies, providing justification for colonizing “savage” and “backward” peoples.
This combination of colonialism and imperialism — both by the United States and by European nations — created underdeveloped countries. Colonialism was inherently oppressive, with the United States as the domineering power, subjugating other nations and exercising control over their territories and their governments.
Modern poverty is the fruit of those centuries of slavery, exploitation and imperialism; it is not a choice made by those colonized.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa uniquely exposes this interconnectedness of contemporary economic imbalance with imperialism as he “delves into…
