the Darker Nations: A People's History of Third World

The landmark alternative history of the Cold War from the perspective of the Global South, reissued in paperback with a new introduction by the authorIn this award-winning investigation into the overlooked history of the Third World—with a new preface by the author for its fifteenth anniversary—internationally renowned historian Vijay Prashad conjures what Publishers Weekly calls “a vital assertion of an alternative future.” The Darker Nations, praised by critics as a welcome antidote to apologists for empire, has defined for a generation of scholars, activists, and dreamers what it is to imagine a more just international order and continues to offer lessons for the radical political projects of today. With the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rise of India and China on the global scene, this paradigm-shifting book of groundbreaking scholarship helps us envision the future of the Global South by restoring to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced an impoverished and asymmetrical international political arena. No other book on the Third World—as a utopian idea and a global movement—can speak so effectively and engagingly to our troubled times.

A landmark work, The Darker Nations chronicles the rise and fall of the Third World. Vijay Prashad reconstructs the fascinating history of the Third World, recalling the now-forgotten Brussels conclave of the League Against Imperialism - an international effort that brought Albert Einstein together with Jawaharlal Nehru, Madame Sun Yat-Sen and hundreds of other far-flung revolutionaries. Also includes a striking new analysis of the 1955 conference in Bandung, Indonesia, where 29 African and Asian countries launched the Third World Project.