Synopses & Reviews
An alternative Account of the Cold War from the point of the view of the world's poor"The first comprehensive political history of the third world as concept and as project" Immanuel Wallerstein)."The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose project should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers."Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
A landmark work from a brilliant young scholar, The Darker Nations chronicles the rise and fall of the Third World. Its hardcover publication was hailed by renowned scholar Immanuel Wallerstein as "essential background for rethinking history." Publishers Weekly recognized its relevance for global activists today, noting its "vital assertion of an alternative future, grounded in an anti-imperialist vision."
Brilliantly tracing the hopes of this decades-long global movement, its limitations, and its ultimate downfall in the 1980s, Prashad reconstructs the fascinating prehistory of the Third World, recalling the now-forgotten 1927 Brussels conclave of the League Against Imperialisman international effort that brought Albert Einstein together with Jawaharlal Nehru, Madame Sun Yat-Sen, and hundreds of other far-flung revolutionaries. The book also offers a striking new analysis of the 1955 conference in Bandung, Indonesia, where twenty-nine African and Asian countriesand Third World giants like India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser, and Indonesia's Sukarnolaunched the Third World project.
Elegiac, combative, revisionist, incisiveand recalling the vivid thoughts and words of scores of extraordinary intellectuals, artists, and freedom fightersThe Darker Nations is destined to become a classic.
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The Darker Nationshas been named a finalist for the 11th Annual Asian American Literary Awards. --Ken Chen, Executive Director,
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The first comprehensive political history of the third world as concept and as project. --Immanuel Wallerstein
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The Darker Nationshas been named a finalist for the 11th Annual Asian American Literary Awards. --Ken Chen, Executive Director, The Asian American Writers' Workshop
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“Seminal and distinctive.”
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“Southern Insurgency richly reports a qualitatively different practice evolving in India, China, and South Africa. It is horizontal rather than vertical. At this living moment all over our globe, workers are reaching out hands, first to their workmates, then to other workers everywhere.”
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“This book provides the most crucial case studies of alternative worker organizing in the major centers of industrial production in China, India, and South Africa—where workers recognize their power and act to end exploitation.”
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“Southern Insurgency illuminates the most important questions of our time: can the democratic and transformative currents which inspired the movements of the past re-emerge today?”
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“Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the present form of militant unionism in the Global South.”
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“Immanuel Ness provides dramatic case studies of worker resistance to corporate exploitation and state violence, through the formation of militant organizations in factories and within their communities.”
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“Southern Insurgency is the first book to theorize and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles. Analytically brilliant and empirically sound, it is a must-read for all who wish to grasp and understand the emerging working class in India, China, and South Africa. A superb portrait of the trajectory of the independent workers’ struggle.”
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“Southern Insurgency offers insights on global labor struggles in an era when familiar unions seem exhausted, or at least too weak to make a concerted effort—with concrete examples of workers forming independent unions in the Global South.”
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“After reading this work, the question that haunts the liberal mind is 'Why is this unprecedented intolerance of capitalism occurring at a mature stage of its development?' This book is most likely to throw challenges to the conventional economics of collective bargaining.”
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“Southern Insurgency vividly describes what workers in India, China, and South Africa have done to make their unions more effective. Let’s hope that these compelling case studies of rank-and-file struggle and bottom-up change lead to more of the same where it’s needed the most.”
Synopsis
Here, from a brilliant young writer, is a paradigm-shifting history of both a utopian concept and global movement—the idea of the Third World.
The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world's impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.
Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashads fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser, and Indonesia's Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now-forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.
Synopsis
A landmark study that offers an alternative history of the Cold War from the point of view of the world's poor.
Synopsis
Even as labor in the developed world seems to be in retreat, industrial struggle continues elsewhere—and with particular force in the Global South. In
Southern Insurgency, Immanuel Ness provides a thorough and expert perspective of three key countries where workers are fighting the spread of unchecked industrial capitalism: China, India, and South Africa. In each case, he considers the broader historical forces in play, such as the effects of imperialism, the decline of the international union movement, class struggle, and the growing reserve of available labor. He then narrows his focus in each case on the specifics of the current grassroots insurgency: the militancy of miners in South Africa, new labor organizations in India, and the rise of worker insurgencies in China.
The product of extensive firsthand field research, Southern Insurgency paints a picture of the new industrial proletariat in the Global South—a group that lives a precarious, frightening existence yet at the same time offers hope for new approaches to solidarity and the anti-capitalist struggle.
About the Author
Vijay Prashadis the George and Martha Kellner Professor of South Asian History and the director of international studies at Trinity College, Connecticut. He is the author of The Karma of Brown Folkand Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting, among other books. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.