Introduction

The year 2020 will mark 40 years since the Brandt Line first appeared as a North–South boundary. An incisive and decisive rift neatly divided the international community into a poor global South and a wealthy global North. The Brandt Line is commonly taken to be a development boundary, whereas it seems to be in fact a political boundary. In the Introduction, the nature and genesis of the Brandt Line are analyzed, i.e. in reference to international politics, globalization, population, wealth, and the number of countries. The quantitative and qualitative changes in the international community that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s patently required the delineation of a new global development divide – a “new Brandt Line”.