The term
Third World arose during the
Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either
NATO, or the
Communist Bloc. The
United States,
Western European nations and their allies represented the
First World, while the
Soviet Union,
China,
Cuba, and their allies represented the
Second World. This terminology provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on social, political, cultural and economic divisions. The Third World was normally seen to include many countries with
colonial pasts in
Africa,
Latin America,
Oceania and
Asia. It was also sometimes taken as synonymous with countries in the
Non-Aligned Movement. In the
dependency theory of thinkers like
Raul Prebisch, Walter Rodney, Theotonio dos Santos, and
Andre Gunder Frank, the Third World has also been connected to the world economic division as
"periphery" countries in the world system that is dominated by the
"core" countries.