The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets

Jason Hickel

Feb 2018 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

About this audiobook

Sixty percent of humanity?some 4.3 billion people?live in debilitating poverty. The standard development narrative suggests that alleviating poverty in poor countries is a matter of getting the internal policies right, combined with aid from rich countries. But anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that this approach misses the broader political forces at play. Global poverty?and the growing divide between "developing" and "developed" countries?has to do with how the global economy has been designed over the course of five hundred years through conquest, colonialism, regime change, debt, and trade deals. Global inequality doesn't just exist; it has been created.



To close the divide, Dr. Hickel proposes dramatic action rooted in real justice: we must abolish debt burdens in the developing world; democratize the IMF, World Bank, and WTO; and institute a global minimum wage, among many other vital steps. Only then will we have a chance at a world built on equal footing.

Ratings and reviews

Incredible and sobering glimpse into the catastrophic consequences of free market capitalism and the troubling facts regarding why it's kept so quiet in the global. The last chapter is brimming with imagination and potential ways for society to mobilize in response. This book change the way you understand wealth, politics, and people. Democracy is the answer to capitalism.

About the author

Jason Hickel is an award-winning professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on globalization, development, and political economy, and he writes regularly for the Guardian, Al Jazeera, and other online outlets. He lives in London.

Jonathan Cowley is a British actor who now calls Los Angeles home. He is an accomplished narrator, having recorded over fifty audiobooks and received AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narration of The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen and The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart.