Description:

The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power. Power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and if necessary to impose one’s will by any means available. In relations between peoples, the question of power determines maneuverability in bargaining, the extent to which a people survive as a physical and cultural entity. When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society, that in itself is a form of underdevelopment.

Before a bomb ended his life in the summer of 1980, Walter Rodney had created a powerful legacy. This pivotal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa , had already brought a new perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. his Marxist analysis went far beyond the heretofore accepted approach in the study of Third World underdevelopment. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an excellent introductory study for the student who wishes to better understand the dynamics of Africa’s contemporary relations with the West.

Review

Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1973) is one of the most important works of political economy to emerge from the post-independence African intellectual tradition. Written in Dar es Salaam during the height of Third World revolutionary optimism, the book sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: why is Africa poor? Rodney's answer is comprehensive, historically grounded, and devastating in its implications -- Africa is poor because Europe made it poor, through a centuries-long process of extraction that was not incidental to European development but constitutive of it.

The book's architecture is elegant in its symmetry. Rodney first establishes what development means -- not merely economic growth, but the increasing capacity of a society to regulate its internal and external relationships, produce surplus, and advance technologically. He then demonstrates that Africa was developing along its own trajectories before European contact: Egyptian feudalism, the Western Sudanese empires, the Zimbabwean states, the Kongo kingdom, and dozens of other formations were all at various stages of transition from communalism toward more complex social organization. This is not mere prelude; it is the foundation of Rodney's argument that Africa's underdevelopment was produced by external forces, not by internal deficiency.

The core of the book traces the mechanism of underdevelopment through two phases. In the pre-colonial period, the Atlantic slave trade drained Africa of its most productive population while simultaneously enriching Europe with the capital that would fuel the Industrial Revolution. Rodney is meticulous in following the money: from John Hawkins's voyages blessed by Queen Elizabeth, through the founding of Barclays Bank and Lloyd's on slave-trade profits, to James Watt's steam engine directly financed by West Indian slave owners. He shows how the slave trade was not merely extractive but actively destructive of African economic integration -- breaking up intra-African trade networks, arresting technological innovation, and creating patterns of dependency that would persist into the colonial era.

The colonial period analysis is where Rodney is at his most empirically forceful. He catalogues the mechanisms of surplus extraction -- the wage differentials (a Nigerian coalminer earning in a week what a Scottish miner earned in an hour), the rigged pricing of agricultural commodities, the shipping conference monopolies, the banking systems that siphoned African reserves to London money markets. He demolishes the "balance sheet of colonialism" argument with characteristic directness: "Colonialism had only one hand -- it was a one-armed bandit." The infrastructure built by colonial powers -- railways, ports, roads -- was designed exclusively to move raw materials from interior to coast for export, not to connect African communities to each other or to foster internal development.

The chapter on colonial education is among the book's most powerful sections. Rodney shows how education was deliberately limited, racially stratified, and ideologically designed to produce "clerks and messengers" rather than independent thinkers. The absurdities he catalogues -- African children learning about European roses instead of local ecology, reciting "we defeated the Spanish Armada," being taught that "the Gauls, our ancestors, had blue eyes" -- illustrate a systematic project of cultural imperialism. Yet Rodney also documents the tremendous efforts Africans made to educate themselves against colonial obstruction, founding independent schools, building institutions with their own resources, and ultimately producing the educated cadre that would lead independence movements.

The book's Marxist framework is both its greatest strength and its most debatable feature. The dialectical approach -- showing how Europe's development and Africa's underdevelopment were two sides of the same process -- remains analytically powerful and has influenced subsequent dependency theory, world-systems analysis, and decolonial thought. Rodney's insistence that underdevelopment is an active process rather than a natural condition was revolutionary in 1973 and remains relevant. However, his uncritical praise of Soviet and Chinese socialism as the model for African liberation reads as the most dated element of the work, a product of its Cold War moment. His treatment of internal African dynamics, while present, sometimes yields to the structural argument in ways that later scholars have sought to complicate.

What makes Rodney's work endure is not its prescriptions but its diagnosis. The empirical demonstration that wealth flowed systematically from Africa to Europe, that colonial infrastructure served colonial exploitation, that education was designed for subordination, that racism was a functional ideology of capitalism rather than its cause -- these arguments have only been strengthened by subsequent scholarship. The book remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the historical roots of global inequality, the structural nature of poverty, and the continuing relevance of colonial history to contemporary African political economy.

Reviewed 2026-03-25

Notable Quotes

African development is possible only on the basis of a radical break with the international capitalist system, which has been the principal agency of underdevelopment of Africa over the last five centuries.

Preface, stating the book's central conclusion about the path to African liberation — underdevelopment, capitalism, African liberation, radical politics

Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being.

Chapter 1, defining development as more than economics — development, freedom, human potential

When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society, that in itself is a form of underdevelopment.

Publisher's description, on power as the core of the development question — power, underdevelopment, sovereignty

Underdevelopment is not absence of development, because every people have developed in one way or another and to a greater or lesser extent. Underdevelopment makes sense only as a means of comparing levels of development.

Chapter 1, distinguishing underdevelopment from lack of development — underdevelopment, comparative development, definition

A second and even more indispensable component of modern underdevelopment is that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one country by another.

Chapter 1, on underdevelopment as a relationship rather than a condition — exploitation, underdevelopment, international relations

Actually, if 'underdevelopment' were related to anything other than comparing economies, then the most underdeveloped country in the world would be the U.S.A, which practices external oppression on a massive scale, while internally there is a blend of exploitation, brutality, and psychiatric disorder.

Chapter 1, rejecting the euphemism of 'developing' countries — United States, underdevelopment, moral critique, oppression

The question as to who and what is responsible for African underdevelopment can be answered at two levels. Firstly, the answer is that the operation of the imperialist system bears major responsibility for African economic retardation by draining African wealth and by making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources of the continent.

Chapter 1, summarizing the book's central thesis on responsibility — imperialism, responsibility, African underdevelopment

Development and underdevelopment are not only comparative terms, but they also have a dialectical relationship one to the other: that is to say, the two help produce each other by interaction.

Chapter 3, on the dialectical relationship between European development and African underdevelopment — dialectics, development, underdevelopment, causation

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the turning of Africa into a commercial warren for the hunting of black skins signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.

Chapter 3, quoting Karl Marx on the violent origins of capitalism — capitalism, slavery, colonialism, primitive accumulation

European planters and miners enslaved Africans for economic reasons, so that their labour power could be exploited. Indeed, it would have been impossible to open up the New World and to use it as a constant generator of wealth, had it not been for African labour.

Chapter 3, on the economic rather than racial origins of slavery — slavery, racism, economics, labor exploitation

Occasionally, it is mistakenly held that Europeans enslaved Africans for racist reasons. European planters and miners enslaved Africans for economic reasons, so that their labour power could be exploited... Oppression follows logically from exploitation, so as to guarantee the latter.

Chapter 3, on the relationship between racism and capitalism — racism, capitalism, exploitation, oppression

When Europeans put millions of their brothers (Jews) into ovens under the Nazis, the chickens were coming home to roost. Such behaviour inside of 'democratic' Europe was not as strange as it is sometimes made out to be. There was always a contradiction between the elaboration of democratic ideas inside Europe and the elaboration of authoritarian and thuggish practices by Europeans with respect to Africans.

Chapter 3, on how colonial racism corroded European democracy itself — fascism, racism, democracy, contradiction, colonialism

It took the form more of raiding and kidnapping than of regular warfare, and that fact increased the element of fear and uncertainty.

Chapter 4, on the social violence of the slave trade within Africa — slave trade, violence, insecurity, social disruption

Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of modern scientific achievements... However, it must be borne in mind that to be held back at one stage means that it is impossible to go on to a further stage.

Chapter 4, on how the slave trade arrested African technological development — development, technological stagnation, compound growth, opportunity cost

Colonialism was not merely a system of exploitation, but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits to the so-called 'mother country'. From an African view-point, that amounted to consistent expatriation of surplus produced by African labour out of African resources.

Chapter 5, defining the core mechanism of colonial exploitation — colonialism, surplus extraction, exploitation, repatriation

Colonialism had only one hand -- it was a one-armed bandit.

Chapter 6, dismissing the 'balance sheet of colonialism' argument — colonialism, exploitation, rhetoric

What did colonial governments do in the interest of Africans? Supposedly, they built railroads, schools, hospitals and the like. The sum total of these services was amazingly small.

Chapter 6, on the supposed benefits of colonialism — colonialism, infrastructure, social services, propaganda

We have been oppressed a great deal, we have been exploited a great deal, and we have been disregarded a great deal.

Chapter 6, quoting the Arusha Declaration on the three dimensions of colonial suffering — oppression, exploitation, neglect, colonialism, Arusha Declaration

Means of communication were not constructed in the colonial period so that Africans could visit their friends. More important still, there were not laid down to facilitate internal trade in African commodities. There were no roads connecting different colonies and different parts of the same colony in a manner that made sense with regard to Africa's needs and development. All roads and railways led down to the sea.

Chapter 6, on how colonial infrastructure served extraction rather than development — infrastructure, colonialism, extraction, roads, railways

Colonial schooling was education for subordination, exploitation, the creation of mental confusion and the development of underdevelopment.

Chapter 6, summarizing the purpose of colonial education — education, colonialism, cultural imperialism, subordination

In a colonial society, education is such that it serves the colonialist. In a regime of slavery, education was but one institution for forming slaves.

Chapter 6 epigraph, quoting FRELIMO's Department of Education and Culture (1968) — education, colonialism, slavery, liberation

If there is anything glorious about the history of African colonial education, it lies not in the crumbs which were dropped by European exploiters, but in the tremendous vigour displayed by Africans in mastering the principles of the system that had mastered them.

Chapter 6, on African agency in pursuing education despite colonial obstruction — education, African agency, resistance, colonialism

The incomes given to civil servants, professionals, merchants, etc. come from the store of wealth produced by the community. Quite apart from the injustices in the distribution of wealth, one has to dismiss the argument that 'the tax payers' money' is what develops a country.

Chapter 1, on the source of national wealth being production, not taxation — wealth, production, labor, taxation, development

He who makes the powder wins the war.

Chapter 4, a Dahomian saying recognizing that technological sovereignty over armaments was decisive — technology, military power, sovereignty, Dahomey

The only positive development in colonialism was when it ended.

Chapter 6, opening the section on how African independence movements grew from colonial contradictions — colonialism, independence, liberation, contradiction