A sort of 'An Inconvenient Truth' for global economics…a powerful description of how Western policies since colonialism have subjugated Third World countries. --Charles Masters, The Hollywood ReporterIt's become conventional to blame the culture and climate of poor countries and poor people, at least in part, for their own plight, as if corrupt dictatorships, ethnic warfare and raw-material economies were somehow intrinsic to Africa and Latin America..Diaz's film argues that all those things were the result of a lengthy historical process. Africa's dysfunctional and often anti-democratic regimes definitely aren't helping matters, for example, but they themselves -- along with the dire poverty they can't manage -- were produced by the European and North American powers' relationship to the global South, from 16th-century colonization right through 21st-century globalization. What's most profound, and also most controversial, in this analysis is the question of how much this pattern of exploitation continues today. --Andrew O Hehir, Salon.comA fascinating history lesson showing that the world's wealth disparity began with the Europeans' military conquest of other continents, enslavement of indigenous people and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and other resources, and forced labor, and that it continues today due to the existence and enforcement of unfair debt, trade and tax policies. --Jennifer Merin, About.com