Wealth and Poverty: The Making of the Modern World
Leeds International Summer School (Block One)
Module Code: LISS1017
Module Overview: What is the relationship between wealth and poverty? How did the current
global hierarchy of wealth and power come about? Are countries in the Global North powerful
and well-off because they dominated, plundered and exploited the Global South? The module
explores these questions by analysing the profound economic impact of European
colonialism on the making of the modern world. The module analyses key drivers,
characteristics and repercussions of colonialism in the Americas, Asia and Africa and related
features of the global political economy. It also includes an analysis of the economic dynamics
of the post-independence period. The module includes a field trip to the People’s History
Museum in Manchester as well as a walking tour which takes in the sites that defined
Manchester during the industrial revolution.
Module objectives: To examine the drivers, characteristics and repercussions of European
colonialism especially in terms of the global production of wealth and poverty, and, relatedly,
global inequality. A particular link will be made between the expansion of colonialism, the
development of industrialisation in Europe and the related effects concerning wealth and
poverty. Throughout the module students will be introduced to some of the relevant key
concepts in social sciences to further the analysis.
Module outcomes
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to have an appreciation of the historical factors underlying differences in levels of social
and economic development between countries in the industrialised 'North' and those in
the developing 'South';
to be familiar with the processes of subordination and domination which facilitated both
the expansion of European industrialisation and the incorporation of colonised regions
into the emerging world capitalist economy;
to understand the relationship between colonialism and the development of capitalism
to understand the role of subordination, domination, violence, and theft in the production
and reproduction of wealth and poverty.
Assessment: Reflective essay (2,000 words), 70%; group presentation (30%)
(i)
A reflective essay (70%); this assessment will be completed through an online log
available on the University virtual learning environment (VLE). You will be expected
to complete the first (100-150 word) entry prior to your arrival. Entries will be
expected every day that the course runs and then a final entry on completion. Total
words for this assignment is 1,500 (not including references).
(ii)
A group presentation (30%); this assessment will be completed within class time –
final presentation is scheduled for the last day of the course. This assessment will
be completed in groups (typically 3-4 per group)
Schedule:
Week One
Day 1: The Making of the Modern World: Colonialism, Capitalism and Inequality
Day 2: The Americas
Day 3: Transatlantic Slave trade and slavery
Day 4: India
Day 5: Trip to Manchester
Week Two
Day 6: Africa
Day 7: Gender and Land
Day 8: Independence to Today
Day 9: Presentations and final exercise
Books
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Isbister Promises not kept: poverty and the betrayal of Third World development
Stavrianos Global rift: the Third World comes of age
Wolf Europe and the people without history
Waites Europe and the Third World: from colonization to decolonization, c.1500-1998
Allen and Thomas Poverty and Development into the 21st Century
Anievas and Nisancioglu How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of
Capitalism
White A Global History of the Developing World
Readings
Day 1
Required readings
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Bernstein, H. (2000), ch.11. ‘Colonialism, capitalism, development’, in T. Allen & A.
Thomas, eds. Poverty and Development into the 21st Century
Isbister, J. (2003) Promises not kept: poverty and the betrayal of Third World
development, ‘ch.4: Imperialism’
Hoogvelt, A. (2001) Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political
Economy of Development, ch.1 ‘The history of capitalist expansion’
Recommended readings
 Stavrianos, L.S. (1981) Global Rift: The Third World Comes of Age, ‘ch.1: Introduction’
 McMichael Development and social change: a global perspective, ch. ‘Instituting the
development project’
Day 2
Required
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Newson, L. (1996) ‘The Latin American Colonial Experience’ in D. Preston, ed. Latin
American Development: Geographical Perspectives
Keen (1996) A History of Latin America, chapter ‘The economic foundations of
economic life’
Galeano, E. (1973) Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a
Continent, part 1.1 'Lust for gold, lust for silver’
Recommended
 Bujra, J. (2000) ‘Diversity in pre-capitalist societies’, ch.7 in T. Allen & A. Thomas, eds.
Poverty and Development into the 21st Century
 Bakewell, P.J. (2004) A history of Latin America: c. 1450 to the present, ch.5
Day 3
Required
 Shillington, K. (2012) History of Africa, 3rd ed., ch.12 ‘The Atlantic Slave Trade,
sixteenth to eighteenth century’
 Williams, E. (1964) Capitalism and Slavery, ch.3 'British Commerce and the Triangular
Trade'
 Blackburn, R. (1997) The making of New World Slavery, ch.12 ‘New World Slavery,
Primitive Accumulation and British Industrialization’
Recommended
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Patniak, U. (2006) ‘The Free Lunch: Transfers from Tropical Countries and Their Role
in Capital Formation in Britain during the Industrial Revolution’, in Jomo, ed.
Globalization under hegemony: the changing world economy
Solow and Engerman (1987) British capitalism and Caribbean slavery: the legacy of
Eric Williams, Introduction
Wolf (1997) Europe and the people without history, ch.7: ‘The slave trade’
Waites (1999) Europe and the Third World, pp. 47-58 & pp. 102-7
Rediker (2007) The Slave Ship, ‘Life, Death, and Terror in the Slave Trade’
Inikori and Engerman eds.(1992) The Atlantic slave trade: effects on economies,
societies, and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, ‘Introduction’
Day 4
Required
 Davis, M. (2001) Late Victorian holocausts: El Niño famines and the making of the
Third World, ch. 10 ‘India: The modernization of poverty’
 Wolf, E. (1997) Europe and the people without history, ch.8: ‘Trade and Conquest in
the Orient’
 Hall-Matthews, D. (2005) Peasants, famine and the state in Colonial Western India,
ch. ‘Rural Moneylending, Credit Legislation and Peasant Protest’
Recommended:
 Fieldhouse, D. K. (1982) The colonial empires: a comparative survey from the
eighteenth century, ch.12, pp.271-286
Day 5
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Pakenham, T. (1994) The scramble for Africa, 1876-1912, ch.8
Waites, B. (1999) Europe and the Third World, ch. 6 ‘The economic and social
consequences of Modern Colonialism in Africa’
Stavrianos (1981) Global Rift: The Third World Comes of Age, ch. 14
Day 6
Required
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Waylen (1996) Gender in Third World Politics, ch.3 ‘Colonialism’
Etienne (1997) ‘Women and men, cloth and colonization: the transformation of
production-distribution relations among the Baulé (Ivory Coast)’, in Grinker and
Steiner, eds. Perspectives on Africa: a reader in culture, history, and representation
Green (1991) Faces of Latin America, ch.2 ‘Promised Land: Land ownership, power
and conflict’
Recommended
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Koopman (1984) Women in the rural economy; past, present and future, in Stichter,
ed., African women south of the Sahara. pp. 3-22.
O’Hanlon, R. (1999) ‘Gender in the British Empire’, in Brown and Louis, eds. The
Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century
Kay (2000) ‘Latin America’s Agrarian Transformation: Peasantization And
Proletarianization’ In Bryceso et al., eds. Disappearing Peasantries: Rural Labour In
Africa, Asia And Latin America
Bernstein, H. (1992) ch.3 ‘Agrarian Structures and Change: India’, see sections: intro,
3.1, 3.2, in Bernstein et al. Rural livelihoods
Day 7
Required
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Young, T. (2010) Africa, chapter ‘Independent Africa: Success and Failure’
Freund, B. (1998) The making of contemporary Africa: the development of African
society since 1800, ch.10 ‘Tropical Africa, 1960-1980: Class, State and the Problem
of Development’
Gruffydd Jones, B. (2009) Explaining Global Poverty, ch. ‘The presence of the outside’
Recommended
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Hargreaves, J.D. (1996) Decolonization in Africa, ch.8
Darwin, J. (1999) ‘Decolonization’, in Winks, ed. The Oxford history of the British
Empire, Volume 5: Historiography
Worsley (1984) The three worlds: culture and world development, Chapter V, section:
‘Decolonization’
Spybey (1992) Social change, development and dependency: modernity, colonialism
and the development of the West, ch.9 ‘The Identification of the Third World and the
Recognition of Dependency’