Colonialism, Slavery, and Foreign Aid (with William Easterly)

Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.

We'd love to hear from you. Today is November 11, 2025, and my guest is economist and author William Easterly. He is Professor Emeritus of economics at New York University. His latest book is Violent Saviors, The West's Conquest of the Rest, which is the subject of today's conversation. This is Bill's fourth appearance on the program.

He was last year in June of 2014, very long time ago, talking about the tyranny of experts. Bill, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thank you, Russ. Pleasure to be here. The central idea of this book is captured in its title.

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