Egyptian/French thinker Samir Amin died on Sunday in Paris at 86.

Born in Cairo in 1931 and educated at the Lycée Francais, Samir Amin gained a PhD in Political Economy in Paris in 1957, as well as degrees from the Institute de Statistiques and from the Institute d’Etudes Politiques.

He then returned home where he was attached to the planning bodies of Nasser’s regime. He left Egypt in 1960 to work with the Ministry of Planning of the newly independent Mali from 1960 to 1963, and following this, he commenced an academic career.

Amin held the position of full professor in France since 1966 and was for ten years, 1970-1980, he was the director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning.

His works include the economy of the Maghreb; Global build-up: criticism of the theory of underdevelopment (1970); Neo-Colonialism in West-Africa (1971); the uneven development (1973); Peripheral capitalism and trade (1974); How capitalism works: unequal exchange and the law of value (1975); the crisis of imperialism (1975); in praise of socialism and other writings (1975); the accumulation worldwide (1976); the Arab nation (1976); imperialism and unequal development (1976); the Future of Maoism (1981); Disconnection: towards a polycentric world system (1988); the failure of development in Africa and the third world: a political analysis (1989).

He was familiar in the decade of the 1960s with the problems associated with underdevelopment and poverty, and established the concept periphery, as an overall explanation of the economic relations between countries of advanced capitalism and underdeveloped countries.