While the categories “humanitarianism” and “development” retain the veneer of altruism, they are not understandable outside of histories of capitalism, empire, and what W.E.B. Du Bois referred to as the global “color line.” This course offers students a longer genealogy of the relationship between transformations in humanitarianism and developmentalist thinking in the so-called global south that is premised on this argument. We will explore topics such as: the relationship between capitalism, imperial expansion, and the production of racial difference; the French and Haitian Revolutions and the limits of “universalist” claims; abolitionism and colonization in Africa; labor agitation and emergent ideas surrounding “social welfare”; and neoliberal reforms and the rise of predatory inclusion.