How to Read The Richest Man in Babylon PDF

"It is incisive, vigorous, and generally well-informed." - Political Science Quarterly, 1922One of the most prolific causes of international strife was selected for special study by British political theorist Leonard Woolf, in his 1920 handbook "Economic Imperialism." Writing with a bludgeon for a pen, he alienates the sympathetic critic and would certainly antagonize rather than persuade the unsympathetic. At the outset, he curtly dismisses all altruistic motives for imperialism with a blunt negation: "No European State ever conquered or acquired control over any African or Asiatic territory or people in order to confer upon that people the blessings of European rule."Other motives, as well, he minimizes, until little is left besides naked capitalistic greed. The economic motive of rapacious exploitation is exaggerated all through the narrative of imperialistic aggressions in Africa and Asia. And yet, strangely enough, the author fails to give an adequate explanation of this one motive, which he so much overestimates. Nor does he tell, or attempt to tell, the whole story; he deals only with Africa and China, whereas imperialism is worldwide. In even a rough sketch such as this, one would expect to find at least the bare outlines of the Bagdad Railway project, if not of Persia's strangulation, or of imperialism in the Pacific islands, or of incipient American imperialism in the Caribbean. The book, however, is not too short to contain a prescription of remedies (chapter IV). In the Covenant of the League of Nations Mr. Woolf finds the needed nostrum, despite the fact that— paradoxically—this Covenant "was adopted by capitalist imperialist statesmen who desired to cloak a policy of capitalistic imperialistic annexations." The League should honestly apply the Covenant, confer on itself a "mandate" for China, return to the Chinese "all the railways and economic concessions extorted from them" and all territory taken from them in the last five decades, really open the "Open Door", assist in the financial and economic rehabilitation of China. In Africa, the land should be returned to the natives, compulsory labor abolished, education diffused, and self-government introduced gradually. There is much good sense in the program, though it is incomplete and perhaps a bit Utopian, at least for the 1920s.About the author:Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880 –1969) was a British political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.Other books by the author include: •The Village in the Jungle – 1913•The Wise Virgins – 1914 •International Government – 1916•The Future of Constantinople – 1917•The Framework of a Lasting Peace - 1917•Cooperation and the Future of Industry – 1918•Empire and Commerce in Africa – 1920•Socialism and Co-operation – 1921•International co-operative trade – 1922•Fear and Politics – 1925•Essays on Literature, History, Politics – 1927