www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_271.html
A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge What's the origin of "Third World"? Some say Jean-Paul Sartre co ined the phrase in his preface to Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Eart h Others dare to claim that Newsweek originated the term. I've heard the phrase attributed to the F rench agronomist Rene Dumont, but the most convincing story credits Fren ch demographer Alfred Sauvy, who is said to have coined tiers monde in 1 952. The archaic tiers is used instead of the modern troisieme to sugges t a parallel to tiers etat, the Third Estate, which came into currency d uring the French Revolution. The Third World is thought to hold a positi on vis-a-vis the First and Second Worlds (the developed capitalist and C ommunist countries, respectively) comparable to that of the Third Estate (the commoners) with the First and Second estates, ie, the clergy and the nobility. The expression was used at a conference of African and Asian countries in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 and was the title of a book published by Sa uvy's associates in 1956. It became the title of a journal in 1959 and f rom there passed into general usage in France. There has since been some suggestion that the Third Wor ld ought to be subdivided into the Third and Fourth Worlds, the Third co nsisting of countries that can legitimately be called developing and the Fourth those that are pretty much dead in the water. But the prospectiv e Fourth Worlders have not been embraced this idea with much enthusiasm, for the obvious reason that it makes things sound more desperate than t hey care to admit.
|
http://csua.com/feed/