Author: Chris Harman
Publisher: Orient Longman
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 729
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8125028439
Description
From earliest human history to the Holy Roman Empire, from the Middle Ages to the enlightenment, from the Industrial Revolution to the end of the millennium, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of history.
It focuses on the development of technology, its impact on class structure and conflict, and shows how Marxism illuminates history in a way no other historical approach is capable of.
This magisterial study is essential reading for anyone interested in how society has changed and developed, and what the possibilities are for further radical change in the new millennium.
REVIEWS
I have had many people ask me if there is a book which does for world history what my book a People’s History of the United States dos for this country (USA). I always respond that I know of only one book that accomplishes this extremely difficult task, and that is Chris Harman’s A People’s History of the World. It is an indispensable volume on my reference bookshelf.
-Howard Zinn
Chris Harman’s A People’s History of the World is a very welcome and largely successful attempt to produce a popular history of the human species, bringing out the interconnection between the development of modes of production on the one hand and class struggle on the other.
-Robin Blackburn
Chris Harman has produced an outstanding book, astonishing in scale and quality.
-John Molyneux
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: THE RISE OF CLASS SOCIETIES
Prologue: Before class
The Neolithic revolution
The first civilizations
The first class divisions
Women’s oppression
The first Dark Ages
PART TWO: THE ANCIENT WORLD
Iron and empires
Ancient India
The First Chinese empires
The Greek city states
Rome’s rise and fall
The rise of Christianity
PART THREE: THE MIDDLE AGES
The centuries of chaos
China: the rebirth of the empire
Byzantium: the living fossil
The Islamic revolutions
The African civilizations
European feudalism
PART FOUR: THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION
The conquest of the New Spain
Renaissance to Reformation
The birth pangs of a new order
The last flowering of Asia’s empires
PART FIVE: THE SPREAD OF THE NEW ORDER
A time of social peace
>From superstition to science
The enlightenment
Slavery and wage slavery
Slavery and racism
The economics of free labour
PART SIX: THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
American prologue
The French Revolution
Jacobinism outside France
The retreat of reason
The industrial revolution
The birth of Marxism
1848
The American Civil War
The conquest of the East
The Japanese exception
Storming heaven: The Paris Commune
PART SEVEN: THE CENTURY OF HOPE AND HORROR
The world of capital
World war and world revolution
Europe in turmoil
Revolt in the colonial world
The Golden Twenties
The great slump
Strangled hope: 1934-36
Midnight in the century
The Cold War
The new world disorder
Conclusion: Illusion of the epoch
NOTES
GLOSSARY
FURTHER READING
INDEX