How did Western imperialism shape the developing world? And what effect has Anglo-American expansionism had on economic development in poor parts of the world? This discussion will cover how Atul Kohli tackles this question in his new book, Imperialism and the Developing World, by analyzing British and American influence on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America from the age of the British East India Company to the most recent U.S. war in Iraq.

Atul Kohli is the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University. His principal research interests are in the area of political economy of developing countries. He is the author of Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the U.S. Shaped the Global Periphery (Oxford University Press, 2020); Poverty amid Plenty in the New India (2012) (a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2012 on Asia and the Pacific); State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (2004) (winner of the Charles Levine Award (2005) of the International Political Science Association); Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability (1991); and The State and Poverty in India (1987).  He has also edited or coedited ten volumes (most recently, Business and Politics in India, 2019; and States in the Developing World, 2017) and published some sixty articles. Through much of his scholarship he has emphasized the role of sovereign and effective states in the promotion of inclusive development. He currently serves as a co-chair of the editorial committee of the journal World Politics, where he also served as the chief-editor during 2006-13.  During 2009-10 he was the Vice President of the American Political Science Association. He has received grants from the Social Science Research Council, Ford Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

You can order the book, Imperialism and the Developing World, from the Oxford University Press website.

Natalya Naqvi (@natalyanaqvi) is Assistant Professor in International Political Economy in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

Karen E. Smith is Professor of International Relations and Head of the Department of International Relations at LSE, and is Director of the European Foreign Policy Unit.

The Department of International Relations (@LSEIRDept) is one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. It is ranked 4th in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2019 tables for Politics and International Studies.

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