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Humans: The 300,000-Year Struggle for Equality
This is a history of humanity like it's never been told before. Historian Alvin Finkel builds on the work of archaeologists, anthropologists and historians to present the very long view of the history of the human species. His focus is not on the leaders whose exploits are recounted in traditional histories, but rather on the experiences of ordinary people, the 99%, whose experiences and activities are often overlooked.
In the extensive research of many contemporary scholars, Alvin Finkel notes a common thread which most historians have the constant efforts of ordinary people throughout history to create and sustain societies based on equality of all individuals. Contrary to traditional historical writing, he finds that the earliest human communities usually treated all individuals as equals. In the histories of societies all around the world, he records how individuals who found ways to gain wealth and power have faced constant, often successful, resistance from the rest.
From the first recorded communities in Mesopotamia to the COVID-19 pandemic, this book features the resistances, uprisings, struggles, and solidarities of the majority against those seeking to dominate. The result is a fresh and challenging interpretation of the history of our species, one that casts a new light on the true nature of humans.
In the extensive research of many contemporary scholars, Alvin Finkel notes a common thread which most historians have the constant efforts of ordinary people throughout history to create and sustain societies based on equality of all individuals. Contrary to traditional historical writing, he finds that the earliest human communities usually treated all individuals as equals. In the histories of societies all around the world, he records how individuals who found ways to gain wealth and power have faced constant, often successful, resistance from the rest.
From the first recorded communities in Mesopotamia to the COVID-19 pandemic, this book features the resistances, uprisings, struggles, and solidarities of the majority against those seeking to dominate. The result is a fresh and challenging interpretation of the history of our species, one that casts a new light on the true nature of humans.
416 pages, Paperback
Published September 11, 2024
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May 15, 2025
What a ridiculous trip. This was a wild grab-bag of truncated historical case studies, from which one would be hard-pressed to build a coherent political program.
There's the standard fear of centralization, except somehow in European social democratic welfare programs...and Cuba, and...Costa Rica? (???) The conclusion leaves the question of scalability open, but based on a definition of democracy wavering between parliamentarism grassroots horizontal organizing (vs. 'authoritarian Communism'---large-scale and centralized), none of the implied answers are groundbreaking (see: Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn).
The author's outline of varied Indigenous nations does a great job of highlighting pre-colonial solidarity, reciprocity, and complexity, while avoiding a reducing of peoples to romantic caricatures, while standing firm against "anything goes, take your pick" (The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity).
The account of Roman slave revolts and plebeian resistance are solid, but familiar for readers of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire that places more much-needed emphasis on environments over personalities, and Sarah Bond's Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire, which dives much deeper into the 'popular' history than this book's brief forays highlighting Spartacus and the Gracchi brothers. The politics of transition to overt empire (The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome) aren't touched on, but instead a dive into the contemporaneous history of Christianity from early marginalized sect to Roman institutionalization (and beyond to the other Abrahamic religions) that leads into useful context for what might otherwise be moralized about its relationship to popular movements ("there are good and bad Christians/Jews/Muslims/etc.").
On the plus side, if the Roman history felt superficial, more time is spent on a global tour, looking at less-often centered histories of the end of the Mongol Empire, the Incan Empire, and elsewhere.
Moving from slave societies to feudal history, we get accounts of the German Peasants' War and the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It's a history worth knowing. Credit to the author for highlighting women's roles, but his comments on the witch hunt seem to reduce it to Catholic prejudice, rather than ideological cover for an attack on the commons (Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.
The author's background is in North American labour history, and this shows in the quality of his account of Soviet history. Bonus points for getting some historiographical points surprisingly right (i.e. the Munich Agreement and other overtures revealing Western culpability in appeasing rising fascism, vs. Soviet attempts to form an anti-Nazi coalition), but those points are lost for reductionist narratives around the real problems faced by embattled development of Soviet socialism, (i.e. Great Russian chauvinism---this was a problem, but reducing European SSRs to 'satellites', only socialist because they were 'forced', is overstated no matter what one thinks of these states. See Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain, and Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It just for a start).
If this review jumps around a lot, my excuse is that the book does, too. Overall, some worthwhile information, but a shoe-in for Eclectic of the Year.
There's the standard fear of centralization, except somehow in European social democratic welfare programs...and Cuba, and...Costa Rica? (???) The conclusion leaves the question of scalability open, but based on a definition of democracy wavering between parliamentarism grassroots horizontal organizing (vs. 'authoritarian Communism'---large-scale and centralized), none of the implied answers are groundbreaking (see: Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn).
The author's outline of varied Indigenous nations does a great job of highlighting pre-colonial solidarity, reciprocity, and complexity, while avoiding a reducing of peoples to romantic caricatures, while standing firm against "anything goes, take your pick" (The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity).
The account of Roman slave revolts and plebeian resistance are solid, but familiar for readers of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire that places more much-needed emphasis on environments over personalities, and Sarah Bond's Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire, which dives much deeper into the 'popular' history than this book's brief forays highlighting Spartacus and the Gracchi brothers. The politics of transition to overt empire (The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome) aren't touched on, but instead a dive into the contemporaneous history of Christianity from early marginalized sect to Roman institutionalization (and beyond to the other Abrahamic religions) that leads into useful context for what might otherwise be moralized about its relationship to popular movements ("there are good and bad Christians/Jews/Muslims/etc.").
On the plus side, if the Roman history felt superficial, more time is spent on a global tour, looking at less-often centered histories of the end of the Mongol Empire, the Incan Empire, and elsewhere.
Moving from slave societies to feudal history, we get accounts of the German Peasants' War and the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It's a history worth knowing. Credit to the author for highlighting women's roles, but his comments on the witch hunt seem to reduce it to Catholic prejudice, rather than ideological cover for an attack on the commons (Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.
The author's background is in North American labour history, and this shows in the quality of his account of Soviet history. Bonus points for getting some historiographical points surprisingly right (i.e. the Munich Agreement and other overtures revealing Western culpability in appeasing rising fascism, vs. Soviet attempts to form an anti-Nazi coalition), but those points are lost for reductionist narratives around the real problems faced by embattled development of Soviet socialism, (i.e. Great Russian chauvinism---this was a problem, but reducing European SSRs to 'satellites', only socialist because they were 'forced', is overstated no matter what one thinks of these states. See Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain, and Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It just for a start).
If this review jumps around a lot, my excuse is that the book does, too. Overall, some worthwhile information, but a shoe-in for Eclectic of the Year.
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