The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

by Vijay Prashad

Overview

The landmark alternative history of the Cold War from the perspective of the Global South, reissued in paperback with a new introduction by the author

In this award-winning investigation into the overlooked history of the Third World—with a new preface by the author for its fifteenth anniversary—internationally renowned historian Vijay Prashad conjures what Publishers Weekly calls “a vital assertion of an alternative future.” The Darker Nations, praised by critics as a welcome antidote to apologists for empire, has defined for a generation of scholars, activists, and dreamers what it is to imagine a more just international order and continues to offer lessons for the radical political projects of today.

With the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rise of India and China on the global scene, this paradigm-shifting book of groundbreaking scholarship helps us envision the future of the Global South by restoring to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced an impoverished and asymmetrical international political arena. No other book on the Third World—as a utopian idea and a global movement—can speak so effectively and engagingly to our troubled times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620977651
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	558,669
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Vijay Prashad is director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor of LeftWord Books, and the chief correspondent for Globetrotter. He is the author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Uncle Swami: South Asians in America Today, and co-author (with Noam Chomsky) of The Withdrawal (all published by The New Press), as well as Washington Bullets. The Darker Nations was chosen as a Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize. He lives in Santiago, Chile, and Northampton, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Series Preface Howard Zinn ix

Acknowledgments xi

Preface to the Fifteenth Anniversary Edition xv

Introduction xxvii

Part 1 Quest

Paris 3

A concept conjured

Brussels 16

The 1928 League against Imperialism

Bandung 31

The 1955Afro-Asian Conference

Cairo 51

The 1961 Afro-Asian Women's Conference

Buenos Aires 62

Imagining an economy

Tehran 75

Cultivating an imagination

Belgrade 95

The 1961 Non- Aligned Movement Conference

Havana 105

The 1966 Tricontinental Conference

Part 2 Pitfalls

Algiers 119

The perils of an authoritarian state

La Paz 134

Released from the barracks

Bali 153

Death of the Communists

Tawang 165

War most foul

Caracas 176

Oil, the devil's excrement

Arusha 191

Socialism in a hurry

Part 3 Assassinations

New Delhi 207

The obituary of the Third World

Kingston 224

IMF-led globalization

Singapore 245

The lure of the Asian Road

Mecca 260

When culture can be cruel

Conclusion 276

Notes 283

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

Scholarly but accessible, this history of Third World intellectual thought and politics captures the shared ideals, institutions and strategies that have united the Latin American countries and the new Asian and African states that have stood outside U.S. and Soviet spheres of influence since WWII. This Third World project did more than steer a neutral course between the nuclear-armed contenders of the Cold War era, claims Prashad (The Karma of Brown Folk). Anticolonial nationalism was also the basis for an alternative world order premised on peace, autonomy and cooperation. But Third World unity was also fragile. The optimism of newly independent nation-states that shaped the United Nations into their principal global platform gave way after the 1960s to frustration, conflict, compromised sovereignty and diminishing expectations. Prashad reveals the close interrelations among such obstacles as the persistence of old social hierarchies, the mobilization of religious views and reinvented tribalism, and punishing debt burdens designed to maintain Western hegemony over a "developing" world. Indeed, he argues, "cultural nationalism" easily becomes "the Trojan-horse of IMF-driven globalization." While the subtitle is misleading-Prashad necessarily concentrates on towering figures like India's Nehru, Indonesia's Sukarno and Egypt's Nasser-the book offers a vital assertion of an alternative future, grounded in an anti-imperial vision. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Darker Nations:
“A global romp . . . filled with revealing anecdotes . . . [and] a handy alternative history of our planet in the post-World War II era.”
—Amit Pal, The Progressive

“Vijay Prashad is one of the great radical intellectuals of our times, and this book is essential reading for militants everywhere.”
—Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)

“Why isn’t everybody astonished and inspired by the Third World Project? Prashad traces the creative connection of many specific struggles through solidarity forged by way of conferences and institutions, parties and revolutions. Though The Darker Nations charts the historical geography of a future that did not survive its adversaries, this lively book inspires curiosity about the here and now. Around the world people energize remnant infrastructures and fresh formations with shape, stretch, purpose, and so much beauty.”
—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography

“The Darker Nations is the first comprehensive political history of the Third World as a concept and as a project. It is essential background for rethinking this history and constructing a viable political program today.”
—Immanuel Wallerstein

“Darker nations, brighter nations: this book helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media.”
—Eduardo Galeano

“An original and challenging work. . . . Prashad surveys the history of the Third World with passionate engagement.”
—Shashi Tharoor, author of Nehru: The Invention of India

“A wonderful, thoughtful, and stimulating book.”
—Paul Gilroy

“Why isn’t everybody astonished and inspired by the Third World Project? Prashad traces the creative connection of many specific struggles through solidarity forged by way of conferences and institutions, parties and revolutions. Though The Darker Nations charts the historical geography of a future that did not survive its adversaries, this lively book inspires curiosity about the here and now. Around the world people energize remnant infrastructures and fresh formations with shape, stretch, purpose, and so much beauty.”
—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography

From the Publisher