THE MYSTIFICATION OF AFRICAN HISTORY- A CRITIQUE OF RODNEY's HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA~
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Wal
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Transcript of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Wal
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“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” as reviewed by Sesan Michael Johnson,[email protected], 08099312551, 08072498176
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Walter Rodney 1973
“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”
Published by: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London and Tanzanian
Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam 1973, Transcript from 6th reprint, 1983
Reviewer: JOHNSON Sesan MichaelBA (OAU Ile Ife), PDS (UI, Ibadan)
Date: Sunday, April 15, 2012
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How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney is an expository
book on Africa. The author exposes Africa within the contexts of Africa’s
developments in the Pre-colonial Era, its experiences and underdevelopments
during the period of European imperialism and colonialism in Africa and its present
level of underdevelopments.It is observed that the central thesis of this book is that - it is necessary to
follow not only the development of Europe and the underdevelopment of Africa, but
also to understand how they both combined in a single system of capitalist
imperialism and that there are still some bourgeois propagandists who assert that
colonialism was not a paying concern for Europeans, just as there are those who say
that the slave trade was not profitable to Europeans.
Thus Walter Rodney disagrees pointedly with this apology for the
underdevelopments pervading Africa. To succinctly review this book attempts shall
be made to approach it on a chapter-by-chapter review in order to harvest the aims
of this book.
From chapter one Walter Rodney deals with the fundamentals that are
crucial to the thesis of the book. In the first chapter Walter Rodney defines the
concept of development and underdevelopment. According to the Author,
underdevelopment is characterized by a number of things; hence he calls attention
to the comparative nature of the concept of development. Therefore, he pointed out
that Africa, Asia, and Latin America are only underdeveloped premised upon
comparison with Europe, North America, and the few other industrialized nations of
the world. Also, the chapter clearly states that underdevelopment does not simply
describe the relative economic inequality of different countries or continents; but it also implies a relationship of economic exploitation between two or more countries,
the exploiter becoming developed and the exploited becoming underdeveloped and
in this instance, Europe with its imperialism and colonialism is the exploiter while
the other parts of the world particularly Africa is the exploited.
In addition, in this first chapter, Rodney harangues about the dichotomy
between development and underdevelopment and also makes comparison with
what these two concepts means to Europeans and Africans. In his scrutiny he
basically points out the two levels of developments, that is, individual level and
social group level. Walter Rodney’s argument about development is that all phases
of development are provisional or transitory and are designed sooner or later to
give way to something else.
In chapter two Walter Rodney focuses on the nature of development attained
by Africa before the coming of the Europeans up to the 15th century and he shows
the unique characterization of African civilization. In doing this the author expressly
gives details of developments achieved by African states such as Benin, Kanem-
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Borno, Egypt, Fante, Axum, Ashante, Kush, Mali, Songhai, Mutapa, Zimbabwe, Kongo,
Oyo etc. Generally, the chapter details the following: reconstruction of the nature of
development in Africa before the coming of Europeans, reconstruction of the nature
of development which took place in Europe before expansion abroad, analysis of
Africa’s contribution to Europe’s present developed state, and analysis of Europe’scontribution to Africa’s present underdeveloped nature.
The chapter four focuses on Europe and the Roots of African
underdevelopment to 1885. It ascertains that the European Slave Trade played a
dominant factor in African underdevelopment, all in the interest of European
capitalism. Walter Rodney further argues that Europe advanced technologically and
industrially to the detriment of development of industrial and technological sector
of Africa which was attainable due to the fact that most active, inventive and able
young men and women of Africa were carted away to Europe and the New World as
slaves. Hence, this resulted into technological stagnation and distortion of the
African economy in the pre-colonial epoch. In other words, what Africa experienced
in the early centuries of trade with the Europeans was exactly a loss of development
opportunity , and this is of the greatest importance. Indeed, Europe discouraged
Africa industrialization by not encouraging skill transfer. In addition, there were
Continuing politico-military developments in Africa from 1500 to 1885 as a result of
the European trade.
Chapter five focuses on Africa’s contribution to the capitalist development of
Europe in the colonial period. Walter Rodney enumerates how colonial Africa
became intertwined with the international imperialist economy. The author shows
how Africa’s resources was drawn to feed the metropolitan sector, hence, thischapter depicts the colonial administration as economic exploiter and the roles of
the financiers, bankers, capitalists, Marketing Boards, introduction of taxation and
the currency that the colonial government as part of the manipulations to ensure
that Africa’s wealth was stashed away in the coffers of the metropolitan state
Furthermore, the author hypothesizes that Africa’s contribution to European
capitalism was far greater than mere monetary returns. In other words, the colonial
system permitted the rapid development of technology and skills within the
metropolitan sectors of imperial Europe. Coupled with this is the fact that the
international division of labour brought about by imperialism and colonialism
ensured that there would be the maximum increase in the level of skills in the
capitalist nations.
Chapter six deals with colonialism as a system that precipitated
underdevelopment in Africa, this it did within the contextual framework of the
supposed benefits that colonialism was said to have brought to Africa; also the
negative character of the social, political and economic consequences; education for
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“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” as reviewed by Sesan Michael Johnson,[email protected], 08099312551, 08072498176
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underdevelopment, and development by contradiction. Also, the chapter demystifies
the authenticity of some of the reasons given as the rationale behind the incursion of
European imperialism to other parts of the world, Africa in particular. The chapter
resists the various strands of Eurocentric outlooks about imperialism as presented
by European writers, bourgeois scholars and advocates of imperialism. Not surprisingly, Walter Rodney with a Marxist’s lens argues that this pretext is
categorically untenable.
In this book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” Walter Rodney no doubt
has done a meticulous job. He did his best by writing this comprehensive,
experiential and decipherable book with rich historical, political and economic
perspectives and I observed also that he widely consulted other peoples’ writings in
his analysis and interpretations.
However, Walter Rodney unrepentantly wrote this piece with Marxist’s lens.
He did this without considering any positive sides of imperialism or colonialism.
Supposedly, the author is not aware of any benefits of imperialism and may be too
he has not given any serious thought to why Africa has refused to develop since the
decades that have followed the period of decolonization. No doubt, the author is
filled with disparagement for imperialism or colonialism. Also, I disagree with some
of Walter Rodney’s positions especially on his positions on the Soviet Union.
Arguably, Walter Rodney needs to be informed that it could be said that the Soviets
too could not be exonerated from imperialism. History teaches also about how
Moscow imposed her hegemony upon its satellite states.
Fundamentally, taking a censorious look into Africa’s position in the
contemporary international economic relations it is evident that Africa is still beingtraumatized with economic imperialism which many have tagged neo-imperialism
or neo-colonialism. The current global economic amity between Africa and the
Global North is highly exploitative and this is being accentuated by globalization
with its attending unequal consequences.
In conclusion, I recommend this book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” to
human kind especially to those who want to study Africa’s development and
underdevelopment. This book is a must to read for all students and scholars of
History, Political Science, Economics and the Social Sciences.