Five Centuries of Pillage and Resistance: Latin America and Africa

In advance of the 50th anniversary of the publication of two defining books of the 20th century,  Review of African Political Economy is publishing an account of both Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America and Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Today, the first of these two, which I wrote together with Héctor Ignacio Martínez Alvarez and Pedro S. Urquijo, was published on the ROAPE blog.

Our account briefly discusses Galeano's audacious account of Latin America's colonial origins and its subordinate position in the global capital system, considers the context in which Galeano developed and articulated his thesis, and argues for the work's continued relevance to understanding and contesting Latin America's contemporary situation.

Next week, Leo Zeilig will publish a complementary account of Walter Rodney's equally audacious and influential How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Latin America and Africa share a legacy of colonial and imperial domination, and their struggles for a different future are intrinsically joined.