A Marxist History of the World: From Neanderthals to Neoliberals(Counterfire)

This magisterial analysis of human history - from 'Lucy', the first hominid, to the current Great Recession - combines the insights of earlier generations of Marxist historians with radical new ideas about the historical process. Reading history against the grain, Neil Faulkner reveals that what happened in the past was not predetermined. Choices were frequent and numerous. Different outcomes - liberation or barbarism - were often possible. Rejecting the top-down approach of conventional history, Faulkner contends that it is the mass action of ordinary people that drives great events. At the beginning of the 21st century - with economic disaster, war, climate catastrophe and deep class divisions - humans face perhaps the greatest crisis in the long history of our species. The lesson of A Marxist History of the World is that, if we created our past, we can also create a better future.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Why History Matters 1. Hunters and Farmers c. 2.5 million-3000 BC The Hominid Revolution The Hunting Revolution The Agricultural Revolution The Origins of War and Religion The Rise of the Specialists 2. The First Class Societies c. 3000-1000 BC The First Ruling Class The Spread of Civilisation Crisis in the Bronze Age How History Works Men of Iron 3. Ancient Empires c. 1000-30 BC Persia: the Achaemenid Empire India: the Mauryan Empire China: the Qin Empire The Greek Democratic Revolution The Macedonian Empire Roman Military Imperialism The Roman Revolution 4. The End of Antiquity c. 30 BC-AD 650 The Crisis of Late Antiquity Huns, Goths, Germans, and Romans Mother-Goddesses and Power-Deities Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines 5. The Medieval World c. AD 650-1500 The Abbasid Revolution Hindus, Buddhists, and the Gupta Empire Chinese History’s Revolving Door Africa: Cattle-Herders, Ironmasters, and Trading States New World Empires: Maya, Aztec, and Inca 6. European Feudalism c. AD 650-1500 The Cycles and Arrows of Time The Peculiarity of Europe The Rise of Western Feudalism Crusade and Jihad Lord, Burgher, and Peasant in Medieval Europe The Class Struggle in Medieval Europe The New Monarchies The New Colonialism 7. The First Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions 1517-1775 The Reformation The Counter-Reformation The Dutch Revolution The Thirty Years War The Causes of the English Revolution Revolution and Civil War The Army, the Levellers, and the Commonwealth Colonies, Slavery, and Racism Wars of Empire 8. The Second Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions 1775-1815 The Enlightenment The American Revolution The Storming of the Bastille The Jacobin Dictatorship From Thermidor to Napoleon 9. The Rise of Industrial Capitalism c. 1750-1850 The Industrial Revolution The Chartists and the Origins of the Labour Movement The 1848 Revolutions What is Marxism? What is Capitalism The Making of the Working Class 10. The Age of Blood and Iron 1848-1896 The Indian Mutiny The Italian Risorgimento The American Civil War Japan’s Meiji Restoration The Unification of Germany The Paris Commune The Long Depression 11. Imperialism and War 1873-1918 The Scramble for Africa The Rape of China What is Imperialism? The 1905 Revolution: Russia’s Great Dress Rehearsal The Ottoman Empire and the 1908 ‘Young Turk’ Revolution 1914: Descent into Barbarism Reform or Revolution? The First World War 12. The Revolutionary Wave 1917-1928 1917: The February Revolution Dual Power: The Mechanics of Revolution February to October: The Rhythms of Revolution 1917: The October Insurrection 1918: How the War Ended The German Revolution Italy’s ‘Two Red Years’ World Revolution The First Chinese Revolution Revolts Against Colonialism Stalinism: The Bitter Fruit of Revolutionary Defeat 13. The Great Depression and the Rise of Fascism 1929-1939 The Roaring Twenties The Hungry Thirties 1933: The Nazi Seizure of Power State Capitalism in Russia 1936: The French General Strike and Factory Occupations The Spanish Civil War The Causes of the Second World War 14. World War and Cold War 1939-1967 The Second World War: Imperialism The Second World War: Barbarism The Second World War: Resistance The Cold War The Great Boom Maoist China End of Empire? Oil, Zionism, and Western Imperialism 1956: Hungary and Suez Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution 15. The New World Disorder 1968-present The Vietnam War 1968 1968-75: The Workers’ Revolt The Long Recession, 1973-92 What is Neoliberalism? 1989: The Fall of Stalinism 9/11, the War on Terror, and the New Imperialism The 2008 Crash: From Bubble to Black Hole The Second Great Depression Conclusion: Making the Future

About the Author :
Neil Faulkner was a historian and archaeologist. He is the author of numerous books, including A Radical History of the World, A People's History of the Russian Revolution and Lawrence of Arabia's War.

Review :
'Enlightening and apocalyptic in equal measure' -- Guardian Who needs 'objective' history? Not Neil Faulkner, for whom the history of the world is a relentless and disgraceful parade of shame from the brazenly wasteful tribes of the Bronze Age to Maoist China's sell-out state capitalism. If nothing else this book will make you stop and think and give you a taste of what it must have felt like to be a firebrand buoyed up by righteous revolutionary zeal in October 1917. If you like your blood boiled, this is the history for you. I can guarantee you'll be outraged - either because you agree with him or because you don't! -- Guy de la Bedoyere, historian and author of Roman Britain: A New History (2006).