Violent Saviours (2025)

Economic development is not truly development without consent. For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed Rest in the name of progress by conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by claiming that it brought material gains to those it conquered, while overlooking the demand for self-determination and more than relief from poverty. Renowned economist William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, he argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provides equal rights as well as prosperity. By tracing the economic ideas behind the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how the surge in global trade has given billions of people agency for the first time. Violent Saviours presents a new and urgent perspective on global economics, arguing that consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty. The book is in English.