The West And The Third World

This volume is the first fully comprehensive account of film production in the Third World. Although they are usually ignored or marginalized in histories of world cinema," Third World countries now produce well over half of the world’s films. Roy Armes sets out initially to place this huge output in a wider context, examining the forces of tradition and colonialism that have shaped the Third World--defined as those countries that have emerged from Western control but have not fully developed their economic potential or rejected the capitalist system in favor of some socialist alternative. He then considers the paradoxes of social structure and cultural life in the post-independence world, where even such basic concepts as "nation," "national culture," and "language" are problematic. The first experience of cinema for such countries has invariably been that of imported Western films, which created the audience and, in most cases, still dominate the market today. Thus, Third World film makers have had to ssert their identity against formidable outside pressures. The later sections of the book look at their output from a number of angles: in terms of the stages of overall growth and corresponding stages of cinematic development; from the point of view of regional evolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and through a detailed examination of the work of some of the Third World’s most striking film innovators. In addition to charting the broad outlines of filmic developments too little known in Europe and the United States, the book calls into question many of the assumptions that shape conventional film history. It stresse the role of distribution in defining and limiting production, queries simplistic notions of independent "national cinemas," and points to the need to take social and economic factors into account when considering authorship in cinema. Above all, the book celebrates the achievements of a mass of largely unknown film makers who, in difficult circumstances, have distinctively expanded our definitions of the art of cinema. Roy Armes, who lives in London, has written nine books on film, his most recent being French Cinema. He spent more than three years researching this volume.

There is a wide, unthinking accep­tance of the premise that the gap between rich and poor countries is largely due to the exploitation of the latter by the former, first through colonialism and more recently through neocolonialism and eco­nomic dependency. Carlos Rangel rejects this approach. He traces the sudden appearance and rise of this "Third World ideology" as a kind of socialism of last resort, made neces­sary by the failure of the original Marxist prophecy of imminent cap­italist collapse, with the "prole­tarian" and "bourgeois" nations substituted for the proletarian and bourgeois classes in the Marxist drama of struggle and salvation through revolution. Rangel also ex­plains the emotional appeal, and therefore pervasiveness, of this ideology not only in the Third World but also among all alienated mem­bers of Western society. This volume presents a critical assessment of the Third World ideology. Rangel argues that it is false that Third World mis­fortunes and shortcomings are di­rectly related to its having been overwhelmed by the West. He offers a new path toward understanding the problem of economic inequality between nations, and therefore opens the possibility of searching for creative solutions to that problem.

Foreign Front describes the activism that took place in West Germany in the 1960s when more than 10,000 students from Asia, Latin America, and Africa were enrolled in universities there. They served as a spark for local West German students to mobilize and protest the injustices that were occurring wordwide.

How the rise of globalization over the past two centuries helps explain the income gap between rich and poor countries today. Today's wide economic gap between the postindustrial countries of the West and the poorer countries of the third world is not new. Fifty years ago, the world economic order—two hundred years in the making—was already characterized by a vast difference in per capita income between rich and poor countries and by the fact that poor countries exported commodities (agricultural or mineral products) while rich countries exported manufactured products. In Trade and Poverty, leading economic historian Jeffrey G. Williamson traces the great divergence between the third world and the West to this nexus of trade, commodity specialization, and poverty. Analyzing the role of specialization, de-industrialization, and commodity price volatility with econometrics and case studies of India, Ottoman Turkey, and Mexico, Williamson demonstrates why the close correlation between trade and poverty emerged. Globalization and the great divergence were causally related, and thus the rise of globalization over the past two centuries helps account for the income gap between rich and poor countries today.

In the last quarter century the Soviet Union and the United States have repeatedly come into conflict in various parts of the third world. During this period the most backward third world countries have sometimes proved susceptible to radical revolution, but the countries well on the way to industrialization have moved away from left-wing economic and political policies. In the longer perspective the West has been winning the struggle for the third world. The changes in those countries have been the subject of intense published debate in the Soviet Union—debate on Marxist concepts of the stages of history, on theories of economic development and revolutionary strategy, and on foreign policy. Jerry F. Hough explores the breakup of the orthodox Stalinist position on these issues and the evolution of free-swinging discussion about them. He suggests that, paradoxically, many of the old Stalinist ideas retain their strongest hold in the United States, which has not fully recognized its victory in the third world and the importance of the West's great economic power. The United States too often assumes that radical regimes will inevitably follow the Soviet path of development and that the nature of a regime determines the nature of its foreign policy. Because of these misperceptions, Hough argues the United States misses many opportunities in the third world. It emphasizes military power, even to the extent of undermining its crucial economic power, and it fails to offer the face-saving gestures that would permit Soviet retreats. Hough presents a prescription for an American policy better suited to the new realities in the third world and to the changing Soviet attitude toward them.

Broadcasting has long been considered one of the keys to modernization in the developing world. Able to leap the triple barrier of distance, illiteracy, and apathy, it was seen as a crucial clement in the development of new nations. Recently, however, these expectations have been disappointed by broadcasting's failures to reach the rural masses and the urban unemployed. Broadcasting has also come under attack as serious questions have been raised about its uncritical importation of western culture. Now, in Broadcasting in the Third World, Elihu Katz and George Wedell offer the first complete coverage of the problems and promises of broadcasting in the third world. Their findings, often controversial and always illuminating, will be of considerable value to sociologists, political scientists, communications specialists, and students of development. Broadcasting in the Third World is based on field research in eleven developing countries (Algeria, Brazil, Cyprus, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Singapore, Tanzania, and Thailand) and secondary source material from a further eighty countries. In looking at the role of broadcasting in national development, the authors focus on three areas of promise: national integration, socio-economic development, and cultural continuity and change. They describe the ways in which the technology and content of broadcasting have been transferred from the developed west to the third world, and the go on to show that western broadcasting must be adapted to suit the specific political, economic and social structures of each developing country. The authors conclude with a series of recommendations which challenge most of the assumptions upon which the principles and practices of broadcasting are based. Well-researched, extensively documented, it will challenge policy-makers and provide important data for researchers.

Why are some countries rich and others poor? Colonialism, globalization, bad government, gender inequality, geography, and environmental degradation are just some of the potential answers to this complex question. Using a threefold framework of the West, the South, and the natural world, Shaping the Developing World provides a logical and intuitive structure for categorizing and evaluating the causes of underdevelopment. This interdisciplinary book also describes the social, political, and economic aspects of development and is relevant to students in political science, international studies, geography, sociology, economics, gender studies, and anthropology. The Second Edition has been updated to include the most recent development statistics and to incorporate new research on topics like climate change, democratization, religion and prosperity, the resource curse, and more. This second edition also contains expanded discussions of gender, financial inclusion, crime and police killings, and the Middle East, including the Syrian Civil War.