The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world's impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II. Here, from a brilliant young writer, is a paradigm-shifting history of both a utopian concept and global movement-the idea of the Third World. The book also offers a striking new analysis of the 1955 conference in Bandung, Indonesia, where twenty-nine African and Asian countriesand Third World giants like India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser, and Indonesia's Sukarnolaunched the Third World project.Įlegiac, combative, revisionist, incisiveand recalling the vivid thoughts and words of scores of extraordinary intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters The Darker Nations is destined to become a classic.

Its hardcover publication was hailed by renowned scholar Immanuel Wallerstein as 'essential background for rethinking history.' Publishers Weekly recognized its relevance for global activists today, noting its 'vital assertion of an alternative future, grounded in an anti-imperialist vision.'īrilliantly tracing the hopes of this decades-long global movement, its limitations, and its ultimate downfall in the 1980s, Prashad reconstructs the fascinating prehistory of the Third World, recalling the now-forgotten 1927 Brussels conclave of the League Against Imperialisman international effort that brought Albert Einstein together with Jawaharlal Nehru, Madame Sun Yat-Sen, and hundreds of other far-flung revolutionaries. 'The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose project should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers.'≿rantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)Ī landmark work from a brilliant young scholar, The Darker Nations chronicles the rise and fall of the Third World. An alternative Account of the Cold War from the point of the view of the world's poor'The first comprehensive political history of the third world as concept and as project' Immanuel Wallerstein).

The darker nations by vijay prashad