The Paths of History

Igor M. Diakonoff, Geoffrey Hosking0-521-64348-1

This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity that takes as its point of departure Marx’s theory of social evolution. Professor Diakonoff’s theory of world history differs from Marx’s in a number of ways. First, he has expanded Marx’s five stages of development to eight. Second, he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how ”each progress is simultaneously a regress,” and third, he demonstrates that the transition from one stage to another is not necessarily marked by social conflict and that sometimes this is achieved peacefully and gracefully. As the book moves through these various stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race that focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) that have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day.

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Table of contents :
The Paths of History……Page 3
Contents……Page 5
Foreword……Page 7
Preface……Page 11
Introduction……Page 13
1 – First Phase (Primitive)……Page 22
2 – Second Phase (Primitive Communal)……Page 25
3 – Third Phase (Early Antiquity)……Page 33
4 – Fourth Phase (Imperial Antiquity)……Page 49
5 – Fifth Phase (the Middle Ages)……Page 68
6 – Sixth Phase (the Stable Absolutist Post-Medieval Phase)……Page 156
7 – Seventh Phase (Capitalist)……Page 205
8 – Eighth Phase (Post-Capitalist)……Page 336
Index……Page 351