In the Mirror of the Third World: Capitalist Development in Modern Europe - Softcover

Halperin, Sandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801482909 ISBN 13: 9780801482908

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1997

Synopsis

In Marx's familiar dictum, the more-developed country shows the less developed an image of its own future. Turning this idea upside down, In the Mirror of the Third World looks to the contemporary Third World for a reflection of European history. The resulting view challenges standard accounts of European social, economic, and political development.

Sandra Halperin's analysis of the European experience begins where studies of Third World development often start: considering the legacies of colonial domination. Europe also had a colonial past, she reminds us, and the states of Europe, like those of today's Third World, were the product of colonialism and imperialism. From this starting point, Halperin traces features characteristic of Third World development through the history of European capitalism: enclave economies oriented to foreign markets; weak middle classes; alliances among the state, traditional landowning elites, and new industrial classes; unstable and partial democracy; sharp inequalities; and increasing poverty―all as much a part of European society on the eve of World War I as they are of developing countries today. Halperin also emphasizes the emergence of a militant, literal religion in Europe and its critical role in the class struggles of the nineteenth century.

About this title

About the Author

Sandra Halperin is Reader in International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex, U.K. She is the author of War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great Transformation Revisited and the coeditor of Global Civil Society and Its Limits.

From the Back Cover

In Marx's familiar dictum, the more-developed country shows the less-developed an image of its own future. Turning this idea upside down, In the Mirror of the 'Third W' looks to the contemporary Third World for a reflection of European history.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801482909
• ISBN 13: 9780801482908
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288