Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Economist William Easterly’s new book Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquer of the Rest is a sweeping history of 400 years of Western colonialism, and the associated justifications of colonial domination by claims of civilizational benefits for the conquered. He traces how these patterns of “coerced development” have survived into modern theories of development economics and the relationship of the U.S. with the Global South – as well as how an emphasis on commercial freedom could chart a new path for the relationship between the wealthiest nations and those who remain in poverty.

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