A People's History of the World by Chris Harman

The chapters on early human history are among the most fascinating. Harman’s account of the rise of Christianity and then Islam is thoroughly materialist and provides very useful weapons against fundamentalists of both stripes. He also shows how ideologies – religions, philosophies and politics – develop to explain and promote the various class interests within societies and how, in certain conditions, they can become a material factor in changing societies. He includes the ways in which geography and climate changes, particularly in the pre-capitalist period, affected the development of societies. It is the struggle between the different oppressor and oppressed classes, heightened or subdued because of the changes, which moves history forward.īut Harman is not guilty of a crude determinist reading of history.

At each crucial turning point in history, Harman relates how and why certain new techniques were appropriated or developed by various societies, how these combined – in new, or modified modes of production – to change the way in which people related to each other, creating new or altered relations of production. He shows how it is the way in which people produce the necessities of life which shapes the society they live in. Harman sets out to explain human history from a materialist viewpoint. It is worth starting by describing its strengths. This starting point forms the basis of the book’s overwhelming strengths, as well as some of its major defects. And at the same time, it will not disappoint those with prior knowledge, although it may occasionally infuriate.Ĭhris Harman is a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Chris Harman’s effort in this book is both timely and commendable.Ī People’s History of the World is readable enough for a school student or anyone new to the study of history. To attempt to present an accessible, materialist history of the world in just over 600 pages is an enormous project. Jeremy Dewar reviews A People’s History of the World by SWP leader Chris Harman (Bookmarks)

A People's History of the World by Chris Harman