COS3430

The third world

Michael Stevenson

8 points
* 2 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives Students can expect to develop: an understanding of the inequalities between the world's nations; an understanding of how the structure of global inequality effects different human groups in different ways; an increased awareness of the long-term historical, cultural, political, and economic forces which created and continue to create global inequalities; critical evaluative skills with regard to theoretical models which strive to explain unequal development; an enhanced crosscultural knowledge about the dynamics of unequal development and its primary consequences; and an understanding of Third World writers' views about these abovementioned issues.

Synopsis This subject takes as its central themes the social consequences of economic development. It therefore examines the question of the emergence of industrial capitalism and how through colonialism the twin seeds of capitalism and underdevelopment were sown in the third world. It also examines the response of the third world to these transformations.

Assessment Two essays (3000 words): 50% each

Recommended texts

Amin S Delinking: Towards a polycentric world Zed, 1990
Galeano E Memory of fire Quartet, 1989
Hobsbawm E The age of revolution Mentor, 1962
Rodney W How Europe underdeveloped Africa Howard U P, 1983
Saadawi N The hidden face of Eve Zed, 1980
Said E Orientalism Pantheon, 1976
Sen A Hunger and public action OUP, 1990
Shiva V Staying alive, women, ecology and development Zed, 1988
Williams E Capitalism and slavery Deutsch, 1981
Wilber C K The political economy of development and underdevelopment, 1992