A People's History of the World
From the Stone Age to the New Millennium
Harman, Chris Publisher: Verso, London New York
Year Published: 1999
Pages: 729pp Price: $22 ISBN: 978-1-84467-238-7
Resource Type: Book
Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative or ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals.
Abstract: Harman's presents human history as a story about people establishing and reforming societies for the sake of "common human goals." Societies interact with technological change, powerful people and revolutionary ideas to bring about events which become part of history. Inspired by Bertold Brecht's poem Questions From a Worker Who Reads, Harman argues that history should seek to answer the questions the poem raises because history is not for a specialized interest group or a luxury for people who can afford it. Harman's approach to history raises the question of why we believe our world; governed by capitalism, suffering and inequality; should and will survive.
Harman outlines how both "history from below" and the traditional "Great Man" approach to history miss out on the connectivity of events and fail to provide an understanding of the "wider forces" that shaped people in the past and our lives in the present. Harman tries to provide an overview of human history for the reader drawing on this principle of interrelated events. To study history is also to ask if and how we can change the world. Drawing on Marx, Harman relates how humans survive via new cooperative efforts, which change our relationships with one another. A change in forces of production cause changes in relations of production that in turn transform all of society. These changes are a consequence of social conflict and class. Thus, class struggles are the structure on which history rests.
A People's History of the World gives a general pattern of how we have arrived at the present, arguing that human nature is a product of our history not the cause. Harman also dispels the assumption that capitalism is the inevitable way of the world as human history is ever-changing. This history is provided in seven parts, each of which are made up of several chapters on the following topics: The rise of class societies, The ancient world, The Middle Ages, The great transformation, The spread of the new order, The world turned upside down and The century of hope and horror. This is followed by a compelling conclusion called Illusion of the Epoch. In order to aid the reader, Harman also offers a brief chronology to familiarize the reader with the sequence of events of history and a glossary of crucial names, places and unfamiliar terms.
[Abstract by Amanpreet Dhami]
Topics
|
SourceWatch.info
c/o Sources, 812A Bloor Street West, Suite 201, Toronto, ON M6G 1L9.
Phone: (416) 964-7799 FAX: (416) 964-8763
© Sources 1977-2011. The information provided is copyright and may not be reproduced
in any form or by any means (whether electronic, mechanical or photographic), or stored in an
electronic retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher. The content may not be
resold, republished, or redistributed. Indexing and search applications by Ulli Diemer and Chris DeFreitas.
|
