Book excerpt: This book draws upon data and theories from economics, political science, anthropology, demography, and environmental studies to provide a broad interdisciplinary overview of the Third World. A brief history shows how the expansion of Europe in the 15th century created dependencies in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The Third World is shown to be not a natural or innate phenomenon, but a consequence of its relationship to the First World that involved economic dependency, rapid population growth, inflated and internationally supplied militaries, and governments trying to provide attractive investment climates for huge multinational corporations. Traditional agriculture, world markets, models of development, human rights violations, environmental degradation, and the demographic transition are examined from a balanced theoretical perspective that synthesizes modernization and dependency approaches.