As the euphoria of the 1960s cascaded into inertia on the war in Vietnam and the stagnation of the post-war ‘golden age’ of western capitalism, the direction of the world seemed very much up for grabs. As the 1970s began, the proliferation of proxy cold war conflicts across the ‘Third World’ suggested that the impoverished masses of Africa, Asia and Latin America may be emerging as the key agents of history.
The term ‘Third World’ had been reclaimed by a movement of anti-colonial activists to describe the remaking of the world they sought to bring about. From this, a coordinated political vision surfaced as newly decolonized nation-states sought to use their collective power within the United Nations to challenge the inequality embedded in the global system. By 1974, they secured a win when the general assembly passed
