Violent Saviours

'POWERFUL' FINANCIAL TIMES, 2025 BOOK OF THE YEAR

'INNOVATIVE AND EXHILARATING' Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY DOES NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE . . .

For centuries, powerful nations have claimed they were bringing progress to the world - through empire, intervention and control. From the conquest of the Americas to colonisation across Africa and Asia, expansion was justified by the wealth it generated and the infrastructure it built. But beneath the language of growth and poverty relief lay a question of consent.

Spanning four hundred years of global history, acclaimed economist and author of The White Man's Burden, William Easterly draws a bold contrast between conquest and commerce, challenging the idea that development can ever be imposed from above. Empires extracted wealth by force. Markets, at their best, depend on voluntary exchange between equals. Commerce - not coercion - expanded opportunity and agency to billions. Fresh, powerful and urgent, Violent Saviours shows that consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty.