Loewy’s book is the first attempt to analyze, in a systematic way, how the theories of uneven and combined development, and of the permanent revolution - inseparably linked - emerged in the writings of thinkers such as Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. Such radical reflections permit us to understand modern economic development across continents as a process of ferocious change, in which advanced and backward elements fuse, come into tension, and collide - and how the resulting ruptures make it possible for the oppressed and exploited to change the world.