Few books have been as influential in understanding African impoverishment as this groundbreaking analysis. Rodney shows the exploitation of the continent committed by the imperial countries of Europe, and subsequently the US, as aided by agents or unwitting accomplices in the North and in Africa. With oppression and liberation his main concern, he 'delves into the past', as he says in his preface, 'only because otherwise it would be impossible to understand how the present came into being ...In the search for an understanding of what is now called "underdevelopment" in Africa, the limits of inquiry have had to be fixed as far apart as the fifteenth century, on the one hand, and the end of the colonial period, on the other hand.' He argues that 'African development is possible only on the basis of a radical break with the international capitalist system, which has been the principal agency of underdevelopment of Africa over the last five centuries'. His Marxist analysis went far beyond previously accepted approaches and changed the way both third world development and colonial history are studied. Although first published in 1972, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, remains an essential introduction to understanding the dynamics of Africa's contemporary relations with the West and is a powerful legacy of a committed activist and thinker.

Table of Contents:
Preface Addition to the preface Introduction Chapter One - Some Questions on Development What is Development What is Underdevelopment? Chapter Two - How Africa Developed Before the Coming of the Europeans up to the 15th Century General Over-View Concrete Examples Chapter Three - Africa's Contribution to European Capitalist Development - the Pre-Colonial Period How Europe Became the Dominant Section of a World- Wide Trade System Africa's contribution to the economy and beliefs of early capitalist Europe Chapter Four - Europe and the Roots of African Underdevelopment - to 1885 The European Slave Trade as a Basic Factor in African Underdevelopment Technological Stagnation and Distortion of the African Economy in the Pre-Colonial Epoch Continuing Politico-Military Developments in Africa - 1500 to 1885 Chapter Five - Africa's Contribution to the Capitalist Development of Europe - the Colonial Period Expatriation of African Surplus Under Colonialism The Strengthening of Technological and Military Aspects of Capitalism Chapter Six - Colonialism as a System for Underdeveloping Africa The Supposed Benefits of Colonialism to Africa Negative Character of the Social, Political and Economic Consequences Education for Underdevelopment Development by Contradiction