For an African cotton farmer, if you see your local factory going out of business because globalization means the factory isn't competitive, but at the same time you can't sell your cotton at a good price on the global market because across the Atlantic, US cotton farmers are receiving subsidies and protections from their government, it shows the economic disparities. It's the way economic liberalization is selectively imposed that makes it so painful for developing nations.

Development geographer Andrew Brooks explores the uneven geography of human welfare - from the dawn of colonialism to the triumph of global capital - and explains how Western development models co-produce impoverishment with wealth, and replicate the political and economic framework that returns profit to the Global North, decade after decade.

Andrew wrote the book The End of Development: A Global History of Poverty and Prosperity for Zed Books.