After reading this chapter students should be able to understand:

• The key historical events that led to the development of a European-led global economy
• The arguments for the emergence of a Europe-led global economy offered by the mainstream perspectives, and the reasons why the critical theory perspective rejects those arguments
• How exploitation, colonialism, imperialism, and marginalization are interconnected
• What the major institutions of exploitation are, both in a historical sense and today
• How the critical theory perspective – and specifically dependency theory and world systems theory – explain persistent global inequality