Inequality in Development: On the Social Form of Peripheral Capitalism

Author: Samir Amin [Egypt]
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1990-08-01
Features: Unequal Development is a seminal work by the renowned Egyptian economist Samir Amin. Amin has authored numerous works on the development paths of Africa and the Third World, the main contradictions of capitalism, and imperialism. His two-volume work Accumulation on a World Scale, published in 1970, discussed imperialism and underdevelopment. Unequal Development builds on this foundation to systematically analyze the entirety of the capitalist system, reflecting the author's core ideas on development issues. The subtitle of Unequal Development, On the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism, clarifies the book's central theme of analyzing underdevelopment. However, this book is not only an examination of the development paths of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (the Third World) by the author but also a historical and geographical analysis of the entire capitalist North and South worlds (i.e., the "periphery" and the "core"). It is not a purely economic work but a political economy treatise deeply connected to the real world.