Why, while Europe, North America, and Australia have developed, have Africa, much of Asia, and Latin America remained underdeveloped? Andre Gunder Frank sets out to answer this basic question by showing how world capital accumulation has led to the differentiation of these regions within the single world-embracing economic system. Unequal exchange between regions, combined with the differential transformation of productive, social, and political relations within regions, has led to the capitalist development of some areas and to the underdevelopment of others.