Strategic Affairs The Darker Nations

“The Third World was not a place,” argues Vijay Prashad. “It was a project.” This book 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 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, as nation after nation across Asia, Africa and South America gained political independence from colonial rule. Traversing continents, the fascinating narratives take us from the birth of post colonial 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 Jawaharlal 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.

At a time when the politician and ideologues of the Washington Consensus appeal to former colonies to free themselves from history, Vijay Prashad stubbornly carries on, recalling a past without which it is impossible to understand the present.—Tariq Ali.

Vijay Prashad is a prolific writer and the author of several books, including four for Left Word Books. He teaches at Trinity College, Connecticut, USA.