The classic work of political economic and historical analysis powerfully introduced by
Angela DavisIn his short life the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the
leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution leading movements in North
America South America the African continent and the Caribbean. In each locale Rodney found
himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century
Jamaica's most significant rebellion the 1968 Rodney riots and his scholarship trained a
generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980 shortly after founding of
the Working People's Alliance in Guyana the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated.In his
magnum opus How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Rodney incisively argues that grasping the great
divergence between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the
latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of
European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship
and activism it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
