The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New Press People's History) [Hardcover]

Vijay Prashad's book "The Darker Nations" is a mix between modern history, political pamphlet and political economic analysis. Subtitled "A People's History of the Third World", it should not be thought of as a history of this part of the world as such, but as a history of the concept of the 'Third World' and its political implications.

Prashad's main thesis is that the Third World project was a national liberation project, generally progressive and secular, born out of anti-colonialism and popular mass mobilization to achieve independence for formerly colonized nations. Prashad describes the various institutions and movements all over the world involved in this, their respective leaders and backgrounds, and why they succeeded or failed (mostly the latter). He puts many well known institutions and developments in the Third World into this context, from OPEC to the 'Asian Tigers', which gives new insight into familiar phenomena, while at the same time chronicling the often unfortunately short history of the defeat of mass leftist movements in the underdeveloped world.

The general gist here is that whereas the initial national liberation governments were varied in their class background and aims, they all came from mass mobilizations against imperialism and as such were imbued with a developmental, egalitarian and nationalist-secular ethos. However, the combined force of the world market and the neo-colonialist states (essentially the entire First World) defeated these movements and funded and enabled reactionary movements in these Third World nations, leading to the destruction of the left in many places where it was formerly strong, such as Indonesia and Sudan. The now familiar story of IMF 'structural adjustment', unfair terms of trade, regressive policies on the part of local elites and bourgeoisie supported (sometimes myopically) by First World governments, and the selfish approaches of supposed defenders of international socialism like the USSR and China combine to tell the tale of why the Third World project failed.

The book is evocative, strong and well-written. One could make two objections to it: the first being that while Prashad is understandably enthousiastic about the initial idea of left-wing, secular anti-imperialism in the Third World, one might say he tends to portray it as more viable and as better than it was, and the second being the related charge that Prashad is often much better at describing how a given movement failed than why this happened. The book could definitely have benefited from a more in-depth political economic approach, explaining why exactly Third World attempts at egalitarian development failed from Tanzania to Indonesia, and how the reactionary forces managed and still manage to have the support to stay in power; a good example of this is the chapter on Singapore, which explains the regressive nature of the Singaporean elite state (as well as those of Taiwan and South Korea), but it does not explain very well why they nonetheless had much more success at development than African or Latin American left-wing governments did.

On the other hand, the actual political chronicling and the 'snapshots' of the various nations and their political histories in terms of anti-imperialist development are very good, and Prashad is an engaged and compelling author. Recommended as an addition to more specific political economic studies of the Third World.

The epic tale of the rise and fall of the Third World project - the first (and so far only) political programme encompassing the majority of mankind, has finally been told - and told well. It is a saga of monumental proportion, involving the hopes, frustrations, victories and calamities of billions of people living in the poorer regions of the globe. Yet, at its heart, it is the poignant biography of the birth, struggle and murder of an idealistic aspiration for a better world.

The roots of the Third World project can be traced back to radical intellectuals and anti-colonial activists who operated in both the colonies as well as the imperial homelands. It was the common struggle against European imperialism that brought these men together and led them to formulate shared goals and interests. The project came of age when the colonial empires were brought down by popular resistance and political changes, and the newly independent states sought to carve a new path for themselves, one that avoided both American and Soviet blocs.

It is to his credit that Professor Prashad demonstrates that the Third World project - as exemplified by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was about more than just neutrality in the Cold War. It entailed a particular set of political principles - namely national sovereignty, non-violence, global social justice and international cooperation. From Bandung to Bolivia, these ideas had wide resonance, even among the established elites in the Third World. However, putting these principles into practice was another matter, although the Third World project did have its successes, (notably in accelerating decolonization and influencing Soviet foreign policy) as the first part of the book reveals.

The demise of the Third World project had internal and external causes: the former are dealt with in the second part of the book, the latter in the third. The main internal cause of the project's collapse was the failure to reform society: as a result, the ruling classes in the Third World, once they attained a certain degree of power and wealth, were able to jettison the developmental state in favour of neoliberalism, (which corresponded with a shift in their ideological sympathies from nationalism to globalism). The key external cause was the inability of the Third World to break its economic dependence on the developed countries, which, in the wake of the debt crises, made it increasingly difficulty for it to propose or promote an independent political agenda. Of course, the author also considers many of the subsidiary causes for the Third World's failures.

The overall layout of the book is roughly chronological, but the individual chapters combine thematic and geographical approaches. Thus, each chapter considers one particular part of the Third World, (be it Havana, Arusha or Singapore), provides its historical background, and then employs it to demonstrate a theme or an event common to many developing countries. This rather unconventional style of writing, which builds from the local and the particular, to the global and the general, provides the reader with a deeper as well as a wider understanding of the history and politics of the Third World.

Though the Third World project had a number of triumphs, it ultimately ended in tragedy, as old ideas perished at the hands of new realities. One such reality was the replacement of a political nationalism based on solidarity and sympathy, with a cultural nationalism founded on hatred and xenophobia. Professor Prashad describes how and why this shift took place - and how masses once gripped by the hopeful idealism of secular and socialist movements fell prey to the paranoid politics of religious fundamentalists. As we watch society after society succumb to this madness, 'The Darker Nations' enables us to realize just how much the failure of the Third World project has cost us.