Violent Saviours
The West, the Rest, and Capitalism Without Consent
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Violent Saviours
Narrated by:
Fred Sanders
Buy Now for $31.86
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
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By:
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William Easterly
About this listen
'AN INNOVATIVE AND EXHILARATING READ' Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
Economic development is not really development without consent.
For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed 'Rest' in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the
alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But they overlooked the demand for self-determination - and not just relief from poverty.
Renowned economist and author of The White Man's Burden William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provide equal rights as well as prosperity. Tracing the economic ideas underpinning the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how it is the surge in global trade that has given agency to billions of people for the first time.
Asserting a new and urgent perspective on global economics, Violent Saviours shows that the demands for consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty.©2025 William Easterly
Critic Reviews
Powerful (Financial Times, Books of the Year)
Easterly's deep scholarship brings the story to life, celebrating the few who saw clearly, some familiar, many not. An innovative and exhilarating read (Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics)
You must read Violent Saviours (Stephen Haber, Stanford University)
Easterly has done it again, sharply revising what we thought we knew, but didn't. He shows us the startling unity among tyrannies we imagined were distinct. A triumph of liberal thought (Deirdre McCloskey, Cato Institute)
Violent Saviors is Bill Easterly's masterpiece. It brilliantly weaves together the self-serving and arrogant histories of the conquests, enslavements and destructive 'assistance' the West has imposed on the Rest, showing the common patronizing thread that connects them and tracing all these hideous histories to the philosophies that justified them, which Easterly masterfully dissects (Charles Calomiris, Columbia Business School)
A nicely contrarian work of interest to aid organizations and policymakers everywhere
No reviews yet
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