Social Change, Development and Dependency: Modernity, Colonialism and the Development of the West

by Tony Spybey

This book takes the study of development and social change out of the confines of the modernization theory-dependency theory debate. The author examines social change against the background to the rise of the West and the global spread of its institutions. Spybey analyses the development of the nation-state system in the modern world, emphasizing its Western origins. He also traces out the emergence of colonialism, the capitalist world-economy and Western dominance over other parts of the world.
In the second half of the book the author picks up these developments after the Second World War, against the background of the Cold War and the end of European colonialism, when new global institutions reaffirmed the existence of nation-state system, global military order and capitalist world economy. The First, Second and Third Worlds are placed in their social, political and economic contexts and traced through to the post-Bretton Woods period of oil crises, global recession and new international division of labour. The author then goes on to discuss the implications of the growth of East Asian manufacturing success and the resurgence of Islam.
This is a wide-ranging, lively and accessible work, which will appeal to students and academics concerned with development studies and the general problem of modernity.

257 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992