How Europe underdeveloped Africa / by Walter Rodney ; introduction by Vincent Harding, William Strickland, and Robert Hill ; with a postscript by A.M. Babu.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface -- Chapter One. Some Questions on Development. 1.1 What is Development -- 1.2 What is Underdevelopment? -- Chapter Two. How Africa Developed Before the Coming of the Europeans up to the 15th Century -- 2.1 General Over-View -- 2.2 Concrete Examples -- Chapter Three. Africa's Contribution to European Capitalist Development -- the Pre-Colonial Period -- 3.1 How Europe Became the Dominant Section of a World-Wide Trade System -- 3.2 Africa's contribution to the economy and beliefs of early capitalist Europe -- Chapter Four. Europe and the Roots of African Underdevelopment -- to 1885 -- 4.1 The European Slave Trade as a Basic Factor in African Underdevelopment -- 4.2 Technological Stagnation and Distortion of the African Economy in the Pre-Colonial Epoch -- 4.3 Continuing Politico-Military Developments in Africa -- 1500 to 1885 -- 4.4 The Coming of Imperialism and Colonialism -- Chapter Five. Africa's Contribution to the Capitalist Development of Europe -- the Colonial Period -- 5.1 Expatriation of African Surplus Under Colonialism -- 5.2 The Strengthening of Technological and Military Aspects of Capitalism -- Chapter Six. Colonialism as a System for Underdeveloping Africa -- 6.1 The Supposed Benefits of Colonialism to Africa -- 6.2 Negative Character of the Social, Political and Economic Consequences -- 6.3 Education for Underdevelopment -- 6.4 Development by Contradiction.

"This book derives from a concern with the contemporary African situation. It delves into the past only because otherwise it would be impossible to understand how the present came into being and what the trends are for the near future. In the search for an understanding of what is now called underdevelopment in Africa, the limits of inquiry have had to be fixed as far apart as the fifteenth century, on the one hand and the end of the colonial period, on the other hand."--Preface.