These essays, by two of the foremost scholars who worked in the Marxist tradition on African economic and social issues, offers an overview of socialism and economic development, and of nationalism and revolution in sub-Saharan Africa; of labor, peasantries, and populism. It includes case studies of Tanzania, Rhodesia, and Mozambique.

Giovanni Arrighi (1937-2009) taught in Europe, Africa, and the United States. He was a member of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union in 1966, and was deported from Rhodesia for his political activities. In 1979, Arrighi joined Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins as a professor of sociology at the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University.