A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
'AN INNOVATIVE AND EXHILARATING READ' Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
Economic development is not really development without consent.
For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed 'Rest' in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the
alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But they overlooked the demand for self-determination - and not just relief from poverty.
Renowned economist and author of The White Man's Burden William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provide equal rights as well as prosperity. Tracing the economic ideas underpinning the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how it is the surge in global trade that has given agency to billions of people for the first time.
Asserting a new and urgent perspective on global economics, Violent Saviours shows that the demands for consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty.
Hardback | 448 pages | Published November 2025
