mhersonhord's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
This book had been on my list for many years, and I'm very glad I finally took the time to read it. I learned a lot, and it's clearly a massive intellectual achievement. Ultimately, though, it mainly reinforced my sense that Marxism is an ill-fitting container for decolonial politics. Rodney attempts to massage yet still retains the vulgar (and thoroughly Eurocentric) stagist historical model of Marxism, in a manner that leads to its own quite racist conclusions -- see, as an example, his comparative discussion of the lifeways and physiologies of the Batutsi, Bahutu, and Batwa peoples of Rwanda, where he uses their differences in average stature to conclude that agriculturalists are more historically developed than hunter-gatherers, and pastoralists more so than agriculturalists, as apologia for the caste system that then existed between them.
The details laid out in the first half of the book are fascinating and absorbed me utterly, but the argument that first half makes is, when summarized, a fairly sour and uninspiring political dead end. It is, in essence, that African societies (and every other society on earth) would eventually develop into feudalism, and its feudalism would develop and nurture capitalism, had European capitalist powers not swept in to distort their process of historical development. (As with many Marxist histories, this leads the author to describe unspeakably violent processes of social domination like state-building and social caste systems in glowingly positive terms, because these are imagined to integrate people in large numbers for the further development of their mastery over nature -- which always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.) But Rodney also takes as a given that capitalism is an expansionary social system: once it is unleashed, it must necessarily seek to exploit across oceans and continents. And so, one would therefore conclude that if things had been a bit different historically and some other continent (perhaps Africa!) had gotten to capitalism first, we would see the exact same historical process play out, with the geographic distribution of metropole and colonial periphery mixed up a bit. What emancipatory conclusions are to be drawn from this are left unclear. Rodney is left in the theoretically uncomfortable position of arguing that capitalism is simultaneously a historically progressive social system, whose development is necessary for the ultimate achievement of socialism, and which Africa was deprived of developing organically by way of its internal dynamics, and a historically regressive one, which actively underdevelops most of the world. The practical conclusions -- that colonial relationships must be overthrown and sovereignty of the colonized achieved -- are straightforward enough, but what this means for historical materialism as a framework is far less certain. The implicitly pro-imperialist historical thought of the early/mid career Marx (as in The Communist Manifesto and "The British Rule in India") is certainly quite detestable in contrast to the alternative "decolonial Marxism" that Rodney is developing -- but it is also more internally consistent/coherent.
The second half is much more interesting politically, and at times stretches itself beyond the (within Marxism, anyway) prevailing historical materialist orthodoxy, but at the end of the day the text's Marxism is a fetter on what it is able to argue.
Worth reading, has much for us to learn from today, but a book one should wrestle with and push back on as well. I am excited to dig into Rodney's other works, as I enjoyed him quite a lot despite my disagreements - will be taking up his book Decolonial Marxism next.
The details laid out in the first half of the book are fascinating and absorbed me utterly, but the argument that first half makes is, when summarized, a fairly sour and uninspiring political dead end. It is, in essence, that African societies (and every other society on earth) would eventually develop into feudalism, and its feudalism would develop and nurture capitalism, had European capitalist powers not swept in to distort their process of historical development. (As with many Marxist histories, this leads the author to describe unspeakably violent processes of social domination like state-building and social caste systems in glowingly positive terms, because these are imagined to integrate people in large numbers for the further development of their mastery over nature -- which always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.) But Rodney also takes as a given that capitalism is an expansionary social system: once it is unleashed, it must necessarily seek to exploit across oceans and continents. And so, one would therefore conclude that if things had been a bit different historically and some other continent (perhaps Africa!) had gotten to capitalism first, we would see the exact same historical process play out, with the geographic distribution of metropole and colonial periphery mixed up a bit. What emancipatory conclusions are to be drawn from this are left unclear. Rodney is left in the theoretically uncomfortable position of arguing that capitalism is simultaneously a historically progressive social system, whose development is necessary for the ultimate achievement of socialism, and which Africa was deprived of developing organically by way of its internal dynamics, and a historically regressive one, which actively underdevelops most of the world. The practical conclusions -- that colonial relationships must be overthrown and sovereignty of the colonized achieved -- are straightforward enough, but what this means for historical materialism as a framework is far less certain. The implicitly pro-imperialist historical thought of the early/mid career Marx (as in The Communist Manifesto and "The British Rule in India") is certainly quite detestable in contrast to the alternative "decolonial Marxism" that Rodney is developing -- but it is also more internally consistent/coherent.
The second half is much more interesting politically, and at times stretches itself beyond the (within Marxism, anyway) prevailing historical materialist orthodoxy, but at the end of the day the text's Marxism is a fetter on what it is able to argue.
Worth reading, has much for us to learn from today, but a book one should wrestle with and push back on as well. I am excited to dig into Rodney's other works, as I enjoyed him quite a lot despite my disagreements - will be taking up his book Decolonial Marxism next.
conflagrationinthenight's review against another edition
5.0
The most informative single book I've read on the history of Africa and the (under)development mechanisms of global capitalism.i look forward to reading Rodney's book on the Russian Revolution.
parapixine's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
byejohn's review against another edition
5.0
Probably the single most informative historical book I have ever read. Furthermore, it is written in such a way that anyone can understand not just the recounting of historical facts, but the thorough analysis as well. Has not lost an ounce of relevance over time. In fact, possibly more relevant today than ever, as it’s evident that the systems of economic and social exploitation and underdevelopment that Rodney describes still exist in full force.
lala_cho's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0