A People s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium

by Chris Harman, Napoleon Ryan (Narrator)

Chris Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative of ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals. Interacting with the forces of technological change as well as the impact of powerful individuals and revolutionary ideas, these societies have engendered events familiar to every schoolchild-from the empires of antiquity to the world wars of the twentieth century. In a bravura conclusion, Chris Harman exposes the reductive complacency of contemporary capitalism, and asks, in a world riven as never before by suffering and inequality, why we imagine that it can-or should-survive much longer. Ambitious, provocative and invigorating, A People's History of the World delivers a vital corrective to traditional history, as well as a powerful sense of the deep currents of humanity which surge beneath the froth of government.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World History, Sociology, Historical, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published October 11, 1999

About the author

British journalist and political activist for the Socialist Workers Party.

Harmann was involved with activism against the Viet Nam war but became controversial for denouncing Ho Chi Minh for murdering the leader of the Vietnamese Trotskists.

Harman's work on May 1968 in France and other student and workers uprisings of the late 1960s, The Fire Last Time, was recommended by rock band Rage Against the Machine in their album sleeve notes for Evil Empire.

Reviews

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical Materialism 101:

Preamble:
--“Historical materialism” is the most powerful lens I have encountered to understand history/social change. It’s definitely the lens I try to start with.
--During my first reading on summer vacation several years ago, I had a glimpse of the book’s potential:

i) “A People’s History”:
--A lens popularized by Howard Zinn (i.e. A People's History of the United States) that countered the biases of mainstream history (“Great man theory” changes-from-above/winners writing from their perspectives) by instead focusing on the conditions/perspectives of the masses and changes-from-below.
--However, Harman recognized that this lens alone may not emphasize the structures buried under the cacophony of surface observations.

ii) Systems thinking:
--A lens popularized by systems science, including the “Limits to Growth” MIT technocrats (see Donella Meadow’s Thinking in Systems: A Primer).
--This lens investigates underlying structures beneath the surface. Meadows uses the example of our bias applauding/blaming politicians while neglecting the inherent boom/bust structures of the economy. Now, the systems science folks are mostly US technocrats, so they really lack the critical (esp. understanding class) perspectives of “A People’s History”.
--This lens also recognizes that complex systems are more than the sum of their parts, so focuses on the interactions between the parts (nonlinearity/emergence/feedback loops/adaptation, etc.)
--More critical lenses/applications include theorizing economic structures via (geo)political economy, from capital (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1) to imperialism (Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present), etc.
…My favourite introduction to political economy: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
…Applied to history, this moves beyond the names/dates/events to consider the long-term processes. Ex. World-systems analysis (World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction).

iii) Historical materialism:
--For my second reading, I was inspired by the “What is Politics?” video series introducing historical materialism. This video series is particularly useful because it makes use of the latest in (radical) anthropology, transcending earlier more-reductionist versions of historical materialism (i.e. stages of development, critiqued in a messy manner in Graeber/Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity).
...Start from the beginning video, and note these episodes:
-"6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works and Why"
-"7. The Origins of Male Dominance and Hierarchy; what David Graeber and Jordan Peterson get wrong"
-"7.1 Material Conditions: Why You Can't Eliminate Sexism or Patriarchy by Changing Culture"
-"8. Materialism vs. Idealism: How Social Change Happens"
--Harman’s book has all the pieces, but they are scattered and woven into his various narratives. I understand Harman probably didn’t want to write a formulaic textbook, but 736 pages covering human history can really bury the historical materialist framework.

Historical Materialism checklist:
--So, here’s my current formulaic checklist/cheat-sheet for this lens. We have to start somewhere, so why not build a systematic foundation?
…Afterwards, you can do whatever you want with it. You can flip it upside down and spin it around a hundred times until you’re too dizzy to recall most of it, like Graeber/Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.
…When I try to fill out this checklist for each historical topic covered in Harman’s book, I realize how much more dynamic the book would be if this was already filled out at the start of each topic. Why are we so insistent on deciphering walls of text? Long-form prose lacking in formatting… 736 pages of this, covering the noise of human history. So much labour to actually process all this, sigh…
…My first focus is to practice the methodologies of the historical materialist lens, rather than jump to Harman’s conclusions for specific historical topics which I’ll update in the future (ex. unpacking Harman’s Trotskyist framing, his focus on the “New Model Army” of the First English Civil War, etc.)…

1) Material conditions:
--What are the possibilities for fulfilling human needs (esp. food/shelter)?
…This includes geographical (space/time) considerations and their influences on modes of production (hunting/gathering, agriculture) and distribution (of goods/ideas; ease of transportation).
…Liberal materialists like Jared Diamond (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed) and Vaclav Smil (Bill Gates’ favourite author; How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future) usually stop here.

2) Production:
--Moving beyond the space/time considerations of the adopted modes of production, what are the social relations involved? I.e. politics (decision-making), where imbalances create hierarchies and thus classes with conflicting incentives.
…What are the bargaining powers of the various classes? How are they used/disused (ex. latent class consciousness)? Where is there cooperation/solidarity and where is there conflict/divide-and-rule?
--What are the ecological/reproduction relations?
--What are the innovations in techniques? Are there internal incentives/disincentives for discovery and application? Are there external exchanges of techniques? Varoufakis' Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism provides a useful intro to this:

I speculated about what would have happened had James Watt invented the steam engine in ancient Egypt:

The most he could have expected is that the ruler of Egypt would have been impressed and placed one or more of his engines in his palace, demonstrating to visitors and underlings how ingenious his Empire was.

My point was that the reason the steam engine changed the world, rather than ending up a showpiece in some ruler’s landscaped garden, was the epic raid on the common lands that had preceded its invention: the enclosures [i.e. creating the land market, labour market, money market i.e. debt-driven production for profit-seeking entrepreneurs, seeking technologies to cut their cost of production of wool/textiles to be sold on the global market; see Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails].

3) Distribution:
--How are the output of production distributed? Does production generate surpluses?
--Who are directly involved in production, vs. the superstructure (elites/state bureaucracy/managerial class/security/conquest, etc.)? How much does the distribution burden the direct producers?
--Blurring with the social relations of production is upward distribution of exploitation and rent-seeking (which includes time considerations regarding debts).

4) Reproduction:
--How are all of the above reproduced? How do class conflicts/structural contradictions develop?
--One foundational reproduction crisis is from direct producers being over-burdened to feed a bloated superstructure, i.e. the overhead costs of debts/wars/rebuilding from crises.
--Reproduction requires circularity; wasteful linearity requires constant growth to colonize external sources, eroding their reproduction as well. “Social metabolism” considers the flows of nature-society. What is the metabolism between rural vs. urban? Core vs. periphery?
--During crises, what are the relative bargaining powers? Harman notes the bias of mainstream history (as opposed to “A People’s History”) to downplay the overwhelming counter-revolutionary violence, both to normalize/naturalize pre-revolution violence, and to blame revolutionary violence for everything as if they started and committed everything.

5) Culture:
--Materialist social relations are coded into social values and stories (ex. religion), to reproduce the system in often subconscious manners (ex. social consent from latent bargaining power/class consciousness).
--What are the various cultures for different classes and what do they reflect in regards to class consciousness/incentives/conflicts/social consent/coalition-building vs. divide-and-rule? How are these communicated?
--Education/innovation/science may be distributed to classes that lack incentives for direct application, distorting the ideas into scholasticism and then superstition.

[Kaelan Ratcliffe ▪ كايِلان راتكِليف · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illusion of an Epoch

There's a serious data comparison to be made between this book and Howard Zinns A Peoples History of The United States on goodreads. Below:

A Peoples History of The United States
Rating details ·  147,743 Ratings  ·  4,411 Reviews

A Peoples History of the World
Rating details ·  1,278 Ratings  ·  77 Reviews

Now, for all arguments sake regarding data perception (one being that perhaps there are more Americans on goodreads than the rest of the world, and therefore are naturally going to be more interested in their own country), I feel readers can draw some pretty simple conclusions regarding the above numbers. One being that this book is highly underrated and unread. This fact being despite Howard Zinn himself giving the following comments about Chris Harmans magnum opus:

"I have had many people ask me if there is a book which does for world history what my book A People's History of the United States does for this country. I always respond that I know of only one book that accomplishes this extremely difficult task, and that is Chris Harman's a People's History of the World."

"An indispensable volume on my reference bookshelf."

Now, I don't know about the reader of this review, but to this reviewers ears, that's a pretty incredible endorsement. As for any more potential conclusions to be drawn from the data above? More people need to spread the word of this book, and, more importantly, more people need to read it. After all, Harman wrote this with you in mind.

As for my opinion of this book? Well, my bio describes how I like anything that take a look at society from wider perspectives, as well as a broad outlook on human behaviour. As such, this tomb of a book was well and truly up my alley before I even opened the first page.

I can't stress enough how grateful I am that Harman wrote this. He managed to make a whole cluster of concepts and ideas about humans societal evolution from pre-agriculture, to the post colonial world we live in today totally understandable to my mind.

Does feudalism confuse you? How did it become early capitalism? What was Asia and India up to whilst well known European history was unfolding? What WAS the French Revolution (this one was something I was dying to know before picking up this book), it's initial consequences and overall impact in retrospect? What analysis can we draw on ancient societies (pre and post agricultural revolution) if viewed from a class based perspective of an ordinary human being?

The answers Harman draws are extremely interesting and provocative. For example, his analysis of the Roman Empire and The Byzantium Empire may surprise the reader who's grown up seeing these as the height of ancient civlisational glory. The same can be said for other cultures and people Harman analysis. His method takes the approach of asking the question "What exactly does this civilisation bring to humanity to advance the common persons life and the overall societal collective in retrospect?"

On the negative side, this does mean Harman glosses over certain societies far too quickly. Whilst mentioning Africa at certain points, I felt the continent wasn't delved into enough regarding it's pre and post colonial days. The same can be said of Australia or New Zealand.

Chapter length can be a pain also. I personally loved being whipped around the globe within two page bursts, only to end up back on the opposite side of the map for a point Harman is drawing as two societal changes happen at once. However, some may not enjoy this. Nor the fact that only about 200 of the 620 pages of A Peoples History Of The World are before 15th century, whilst the remaining 420 are overwhelming euro-centric. I suppose we can blame this fact on the fast changes in world society once capitalism took hold, which undeniable drew Europe to centre stage of world affairs (to be followed by the United States).

Yet, overall, I really found this incredibly captivating to read, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how our species has changed over our 100,000 stint on this planet. Don't get me wrong, It's pretty awful what we've done to each other and the environment around us over the centuries. However, that only makes it more important to read books like this to understand ourselves, the patterns we create in our respective societies and how those patterns can be read to bring greater understanding as to how we came to be here today.

Enjoy!

[James Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to the history of the world. Tries to fit most events into a Marxist context, explaining how the development of the "means of production" changed the course of the world at almost every juncture. A pretty good book to turn to if you are trying to place anchor some of these big ideas in actual history.

One of the strengths of the book is that while it is heavy on "dialectical materialism" the author readily points out when other, non-economic forces were also in play. He also is quick to describe the times in history when Marx's theories do not help to understand what happened.

Also, a pretty decent take on racism. He's not a Ted Allen, but takes the subject seriously.

The main contribution this book makes is a trouncing of the idea that class and inequality are natural and inevitable.

[Mark Hebden · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is almost impossible to review a book with such an unrivalled scope as this. Chris Harman present a history of the world, a social history documenting the struggles of people the world over from 3000BC right through to the new millennium. It is a beautiful and admirable volume, packed with interesting facts about the inherent fairness of humanity and our desire to work together to create a better society. It is genuinely a world history too, rather than focusing narrowly on Europe or our western philosophies and developments we are given ample insight in to the Chinese empires and African pre-Christian societies. In our present western and so called developed nations we have come to accept selfishness and greed as the norm, this has only been the case for around 2% of our time on Earth. Prior to this, hunter-gatherer societies worked in an egalitarian manner to succeed. Indeed, were they to have followed the example of modernity humans would probably have been wiped out before we were even the minimal blot on history that we now are. Once our societies started to develop a constant theme emerges that of the battle between the rich and the poor that is still being waged today, and it is a theme that has a monotonous, hollow ring to it. People rise up to claim what is rightfully theirs, have a minor success and then the ruling class uses all manner of tools at its disposal to put people right back where they belong; under the boot of elite hegemony. As the book approaches the industrial revolution, more time and space is devoted to the spread of capitalism and the changes this brought about for peasants and working people across the globe. It is in these chapters that Harman is most at home discussing the economical impact of the new financial structures put in place by the East India Company and their ilk on societies. This is no simple broadside against capitalism though, Communism, or Joseph Stalin’s version of it gets even harsher treatment along with his satraps across Europe who could have stopped fascism in the form of the Nazi’s in its infancy, but chose not to because of the craven misgivings of old uncle Joe. There is plenty here to prove why Marx is still an absolute essential for anyone wanting to understand the world, and Marx as prophet for the world today. The world wars get extensive coverage as you would expect we well as the French and American revolutions. The chapter on the French revolution in particular does a good job of separating myth from reality and rescuing certain people from their own present day parodies. Slavery is always there hovering in the background across the centuries, rearing its ugly head time and again in different societies from the Greeks to the Americans. There is a wonderful further reading chapter at the end which provides access to a thorough range of extensive materials on the periods most written about. All in all this is a treasure trove of a book, worthy of anyone’s reference shelf and would be a superb introduction to global history in a single volume.

[Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. I could not put it down. It definitely doesn't follow Howard Zinn's methodology of using ordinary people's views of historical events, but it certainly does give a sense of how ordinary people are affected by historical change. The text is exciting to read and gives one an expansive view of history. While a western perspective definitely dominates the text, ultimately it is a book that illustrates how events in one part of the world affect events in other parts of the world. It's a terrific read!

[Kevin Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly good coverage -- based primarily on Kolko's Century of War and Politics of War, I think -- of the parallel ways the Western Allies dispossessed leftist resistance movements from their gains in former Axis territory and installed provisional governments run by fascist collaborators, and the USSR used its influence over Western trade unions and Communist Parties to suppress radical grassroots uprisings against capitalism (e.g. Stalin's collaboration with Churchill in imposing a reactionary regime on Greece, the French Communist Party and CGT betrayal of the student uprising and general strike in '68, etc.).

[William West]

I was inspired to read this book by the revelation of just how ignorant I was of world history pre-1895 (blame it on the cinematic foundations of my education). I was also intrigued with it following my recent reading of Zinn's history of the American people. And I must say, it proved a priceless source of information. I had, however, a lot of problems with the book, despite its undeniably splendid passages.



For one thing, the very ambition of the project gives way to certain ludicrousies. How is one to write a complete history of the world's oppressed in one volume? I would be more forgiving of this trap had the author acknowledged the inherent narrativizing simplifications of the historian, as Zinn does while attending to a vastly more modest project. Instead, Harmon offers the “suppressed Marxist truth of all human history!” He connects the parts for us to Know How and Why It Was. To question him would be silly or counter-revolutionary. (Harmon is a prominent member of the Trotskyist Socialism Worker's Party of Britain.) To question his interpretation of Marxism would be to miss-understand Marxism.



And how does Harmon tackle the task of writing the “suppressed” history of the “people of the world”? By writing a populist version of typically imperialist histories; by which I mean he writes a Euro centric history of the oppressed. We follow, basically, the development of the working class in Europe, and later North America with brief, obligatory, mentions of the development of class society in Asia, the Muslim world, and Latin America. After the rise of Greece, there's a 3-5 page chapter on Africa. No mention on Oceania whatsoever.



There's also the problem that a good third of this tome, which is sub-titled “From the Stone-Age to the New Millennium”, is devoted to the twentieth century. Harmon's explanation is that human civilization has changed more in the past one hundred or so years than the rest of history combined. I find this claim spacious and (despite the use of the following term as an accusation by many- such as Harmon- who call themselves “Trotskyists”) characteristic of “vulgar-Marxism” (as opposed to thoughtful Marxism). That everything that matters or ever has mattered can be explained within the parameters of the contemporary working class experience- as if such experience too is not just a “symptom” of the gestations of history- and therefore worthy of more time and attention than the history that conditioned it.



Having said that, the sections on pre-capitalist society are, by far, the best. Indeed, there are some truly great chapters. What I enjoyed the most were Harmon's histories of the rise of the major religions- they manage to remain both entirely materialist and profoundly humane. He relates how the masses of people centuries or millennia ago faced conditions so desperate that they had to turn to the hope of a better world than the one they lived in, and what particular conditions drove them to choose some religions over others, even if that meant entire masses choosing religions that differed from those of their upbringing. The newly urbanized Roman subjects attracted to the monotheism of the Judeo-tradition because it meant worshiping only one deity instead of many- a God who looked down on humanity as a mass, like an urban mass, instead of a Sprite that expected the individual to attend to its one particular role in nature. And the “apostles” and rulers who recognized these tendencies of the masses, and through appeal and guile institutionalized the religions.



Sadly, Harmon is as narrow in his interpretation of the history of capitalist society as he is empathetic and panoramic in his take on certain passages of pre-capitalist society. He incorrectly equates the economic system of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist Soviet bloc with the state capitalism of nationalist bourgeoisie tendencies such as the Arab Baathist movement. What is worse, he simplistically denounces both as “bad”. What start as “revolutions”- be they in the form of the rise of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 or the rebellion of the Iranian masses against the Shaw, devolve into “counter-revolution” as soon as they take any turn that Harmon does not agree with, and Harmon makes no effort to understand the cultural history of each country once he is writing about the period of “global capitalism”- as if the development of global capitalism meant that all national and cultural traits and traditions had ceased to be relevant.



Fortunately, Harmon's conclusion is about the future- and it is a stirring statement about the questions humanity must face itself with if it wants to survive. Even this, however, is indicative of the author's tendency to reduce humanity entire into a simplistic “us.”

[angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

me now that i know the entire history of the world🤯🤯🤯🤯a lot of the reviews don’t like that it’s trotskyist, personally my fav part abt it

[Reid tries to read · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bites off more than it can chew

[Aiham Taleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is very valuable especially for those who want to learn from the history of people. I found that the book is rather a reference not a story of people who have lived on the earth. One can return to it if he/she wants to read about specific period or civilization.
I enjoyed much of the information presented on the book :)
Recommended for history readers :)

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable tome to rival Zinn's, a history of exploitation and class struggle from the ancient kings who ruled by divine right to industrial international capitalism, whose rulers, owners and managers also basically rule by divine right. Thoroughly engrossing and highly recommended.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in school I feel I was taught the world history of Western "civilization". It was the history of wars, imperialism and capitalism as perceived through the eyes of European and American history writers. This book does include the history of African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Oriental and island nations. I liked what I learned about other parts of the world that were largely ignored in my education.
If I was given a capitalist/imperialist account of history, this book was a socialist history of the world. The author seems to view world history as an ongoing class struggle. That is, the working class is constantly strugging to overcome the oppression of the ruling class. The world is seen as gradually developing into something better as a result of revolution and evolution. It is class struggle that defines and creates history. I suspect there is some thread of truth in both approaches as well as other explanations regarding the history of the world.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

i remember this being excessively dogmatic in approaching "world" history from a Marxist-Leninist (Trotskyist) perspective. far too Euro-centric

[Keegan Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I glanced at reviews and am already not surprised to find out that he is looking at this from a Marxist perspective (just from reading the introduction "BEFORE CLASS"). Anyway, I know so little about most of history that I figure anything I read will be new and educational, so it's okay that it has obvious bias (though it's nice to know up front). I will probably take some notes here on what I manage to read because I have no memory.

1.) Introduction: "Before Class" -- Summary -- people haven't always been selfish and greedy. What is known about pre-literate hunter/gatherer societies is that they are often very egalitarian and generous.

2.) Chapter 1: The Neolithic 'Revolution' -- Summary -- about the transition to horticulture societies. a. People in some areas could be hunter/gatherers and still establish villages. b. Then they had to learn to cultivate the land when climate changed and supplies were depleted. c. The change in survival techniques led to higher birthrates, more warfare, a need for more organized governing board

--> thought this was an interesting line: "Prestige came not from individual consumption, but from the ability to help make up for the deficiencies of others."

3.) Chapter 2: The First Civilisations -- The "Urban Revolution" (in which cities arise) also the Copper and Bronze age. Developments include stunning architecture, greater warfare, greater development of farming/herding techniques, storehouses, literacy, mathematics/astronomy, higher development of class structures.

All right . . . not finished. Probably will never finish. I would love to learn my world history better, but I don't think this is the way it's going to work for me.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some interesting parts but is overall too poorly written to be that interesting. Plus the author’s Trotskyism makes the sections post WW1 unbearable.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one go about reviewing a book like A People’s History of the World? With caution, at the very least!

I first saw this book a little less than a year ago in an out-of-the-way bookstore in Spanish Harlem, was immediately struck by the similarity between its title and that of Howard Zinn’s masterpiece, A People’s History of the United States, saw the quote from Zinn himself at the bottom of the front cover (“An indispensable volume on my reference bookshelf”), and snapped it up. Nine months later, I can confidently say I’ve read all of its 620 pages of text—and scanned its Notes, Glossary, Further Reading, and Index.

Have I understood and retained it all? Well, now, that’s another story.

Given that Zinn published his book in 1980, and Harman published his in 1999, I believe we can safely assume that Harman owes Zinn the credit for his title. But both writers have done an outstanding job (in my opinion). And if they both show a bit of a Marxist bent in their choices of narrative and events, so be it. These are, after all, people’s histories—and not the histories of their so-called leaders.

With that in mind, I think the best way I can present A People’s History of the World to you, a potential reader, is to cite a number of Harman’s passages. Granted, the choice of what to cite is mine, and I hope I haven’t done you a disservice by choosing recklessly. There are no doubt at least as many outstanding passages I’ve omitted from my review, but I have to take your patience into consideration. If what I’ve chosen to cite excites your curiosity, then do that curiosity (and your children) a favor: buy and read this book. Then, as I have done with both Howard Zinn’s book and this one, give them to your children on a special holiday or birthday. You won’t be sorry.

As Harman proceeds in chronological order (albeit, from the Stone Age to the New Millennium), I’ll do the same on a much more selective basis. My first citation, therefore, is on p. 246: “(y)et the Enlightenment thinkers were hardly effective in achieving their goal of reforming society. Voltaire, apparently, was dispirited when he died in 1778. Kant noted six years later that, although ‘he was living in the Age of Enlightenment…the age itself was not enlightened.’
“Changing ideas was not the same as changing society. It would require another cycle of revolutions and civil wars to bring that about.”

The next citation is a direct quote from the historian Alexis de Tocqueville, writing about February 25, 1848, on p. 335: ‘I spent the whole afternoon wandering Paris and was particularly struck by two things: first the uniquely and exclusively popular character of the recent revolution and of the omnipotence it had given the so-called people—that is to say, the classes who work with their hands—over all other classes. Secondly how little hatred was shown from the first moment of victory by the humble people who had suddenly become the sole mentors of power…
‘Throughout the whole day in Paris I never saw one of the former agents of authority: not a soldier, nor a gendarme, nor a policeman; even the National Guard had vanished. The people alone bore arms, guarded public buildings, watched, commanded and punished; it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see the whole of this huge city in the hands of those who owned nothing.”

In preparing us, his readers, for the “war to end all wars”—viz., for World War I—Harman has this to say on p. 404: “(w)ars, like revolutions, often seem to be triggered by the most minor of events. This leads people to see them as accidental, a result of a random chain of misjudgements and misunderstandings. But, in fact, the minor events are significant because they come to symbolize the balance between great social or political forces. A sparkplug is one of the cheapest components in a motor car, and cannot move anything by itself. But it can ignite the explosive force of petrol vapour in the engine. In the same way, an assassination or a tax rise can be of little importance in itself, but can bring about clashes between states or great social forces.”

On p. 500, Harman quotes another great writer—namely, George Orwell, writing about Barcelona, Spain in November of 1936: “(i)t was the first time I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically any building of any size had been seized by the workers. Every shop and café had an inscription saying it was collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black.
‘Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as equals. Service and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. There were no private cars; they had all been commandeered.
‘It was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist.
‘Above all there was belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in a capitalist machine.”

The conclusion of Harman’s book is titled “Illusion of the epoch.” In the opening paragraphs of that conclusion, on p. 605 – 606, we read “(t)he twentieth century began with a great fanfare about the inevitability of progress … growing democratization, growing equality and growing all-round prosperity.
‘Yet the reality of life for vast sections of humanity was at various points in the century as horrific as any known in history. The forward march of progress gave rise to the bloodletting of the First World War; the mass impoverishment of the early 1930s; the spread of Nazism and fascism over most of Europe; the Stalinist gulag; the Japanese onslaught on Shanghai and Nanking; the devastation of much of Europe between 1940 and 1945; the Bengal famine; the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the 30-year war against Vietnam and the nine-year war against Algeria; the million dead in one Gulf War and the 200,000 dead in another; tens of thousands killed by death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala and Argentina; and hundreds of thousands dead in the bloody civil wars of Croatia, Bosnia, Tajikistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Industrial progress all too often translated itself into the mechanisation of war—or most horrifically, with the Holocaust, into the mechanisation of mass murder. Nor was the picture any more hopeful at the end of the century than halfway through. Whole countries outside western Europe and North America which had hoped at various points in the century to ‘catch up’ with the living standards of the ‘First World’ saw the dream fade away—Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Russia. The whole continent of Africa found itself being once again written out of history as income per head fell steadily over a 30-year period. Civil war continued to devastate Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Congo-Zaire. To the word ‘genocide,’ born of the Nazism that arose in the 1930s, was added the phrase ‘ethnic cleansing,’ coined in the civil wars of the 1990s.”

And to his everlasting credit, Harman also has a word or two to say about climate change, which he refers to on p. 609 as “ecological catastrophe.”

Read this book for a better understanding of human history, as I did. But read it at your own risk. We are not a lovely species; no, far from it. And from the Stone Age (if not before) until now, we haven’t improved much in appearance. Let’s just hope we can make some earth-shattering improvements before the planet itself goes all to pieces.

RRB
Brooklyn, NY
18 August 2018

[Coral Opal · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is wonderful to find something which further radicalizes me, and I am happy to say that this book has been such a something. This book has served largely as my introduction to Marxism, and there were many times throughout this read where I set the book aside and just thought about my values, my ideals, and my political conceptions. I would highly recommend this book.

Seeing as I have a background in neither Marxism nor history, I cannot offer a ton of criticism on the approaches of this book. It suffers from certain turns of phrase and framings which (to my knowledge) have been more recently replaced and reconstructed. My primary qualm, though, is Harman's frequent deployment of the adjective backwards. There are places in which I believe it's employment makes sense such as when speaking directly of progressions (e.g. stages of capitalism), but from my perspective many of Harman's uses of it could certainly be better phrased.

Despite this, I think that this book is very good. Despite its intimidating length, Harman was able to keep it interesting, and I am very glad to have read it.

My sincere thanks to the employee at Autumn Leaves who put this on their recommendation shelf.

[Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

FINALLY!!

In just over a month, I finally finished this behemoth of a book...and well worth it indeed it was! "Sweeping" can't do it justice -- Harman deftly weaves together different strands of humanity's millennia-long story to illustrate the struggles that drive that history: where, how, why, and when they arise, play out, resolve. The longest chapters, clocking in at around 30 pages, are unnaturally long -- this is easily digested in many small pieces that touch on different areas of the world at different times. As you make your way through the 600+ pages of text in this tome, these slowly condense just as our shared experience on this planet has as well. While maintaining a maybe "orthodox" focus on class, Harman manages to give sound social history as well, skillfully demonstrating how a myriad of struggles both spin out from and feed back into the larger, more dominant narrative.

I happily give this five stars -- if I had had the ability, I might have rated it 4.5, but I'm not actually sure. It seems as if the sourcing becomes spottier as the book progresses towards the end, especially in the mammoth final section, "A Century of Hope and Horror." By far the longest, it is also, I imagine, the most contentious among this book's expected audience for several reasons including its potentially inappropriate adulation of Leon Trotsky and its harsher stance towards the socialist nations of the Cold War. While he adequately details the periodic slumps in, say, industrial output and chronicles the repeated instances of political repression, it would have been helpful both to have seen causal relationships more thoroughly sketched and to have had more details in some places than, say, describing a situation as simply "extreme hardship."

A few typographical or otherwise minor errors are scattered throughout -- at one point, he refers to a Roman consul Opimius as "Optimus" and also marks Hitler's rise to the chancellery as occurring in 1930, not 1933. Beyond these, however, it is a work of incredible scholarship and well worth reading.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read, but repetitive in places (I guess because it is trying to show history as a cycle of class struggles) and of course as it covers such a great breadth of human history it sacrifices some depth.

Nonetheless an excellent and very educational read, I would challenge anyone to read it and not learn a lot if purely because of the breadth of the material.

Some of the conclusion is eerily prescient where he warns of possible future conflicts and nationalist tensions in the next (apparently inevitable) recession although he also predicts that should there be a sustained depression like the '30s Nuclear War would be a real threat - a proposal about which everyone (probably including Harman himself) can only hope he was mistaken.

Indeed, it would have been interesting to see what he would have made of current events since the book was written, 9/11 and the following wars let alone the crash of 2008, the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Sadly Chris Harman's untimely death in 2009 has deprived us of that - although I would imagine his final book "Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx" written in 2009 probably covers some of those modern events.

It doesn't get 5 stars because at times it can feel repetitive and dull, just like churning through the same paragraphs with the places and names changed and it feels that in some cases the history was simplified in the interests of brevity, but overall a good read.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't a perfect book despite my 5 star rating, but it is an immense tome of knowledge that has drastically informed my own perspective as a Socialist. Never before have I quite viewed history through such a class struggle based lens. I now feel much more comfortable with forming a coherent narrative of history of human civilization, and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone wishing to gain such an insight. It was a great ride from start to finish. While it does have its issues (minor typos here and there, my own disagreements with some of the judgements and criticism of some sections of the 20th century left), any well meaning anti-capitalist will get a whole lot out of it. It does carry its own bias towards a specific revolutionary tendency, so that may turn some leftists off once that get to that section, but I would rather not spoil it so as to let you approach it with an open mind.

[Cobramor · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, this has nothing to do with "A people's history of the US". This is not a coherent study, and it is far from compelling.

The first part, about pre-history is totally generic and boring. The same can be said about the period of the industrial revolution. Better time could be spent revising other episodes, and there are incomprehensible gaps, particularly the absense of the importance of the portuguese colonization.

Furthermore, a marxist reading of history should be dynamic, something this book is very far from being.

[Martin Lennon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good overview of world history from the perspective of class struggle.

Early modern history, European imperialism and the early 20th century are particularly interesting sections.

There is a funny chapter on pre colonial Africa where Harman basically points out that there were loads of states with interesting and complex histories, but then doesn't really discuss any of them and goes back to a very Eurocentric history.

[mohammad firouzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harman looks closely at class struggle since the birth of the cultural revolution. the title of the book is the shortest review of Harman's work. it can be recommended if anyone wants to study the history of the world according to the people struggle, class setbacks and changes within the social ranks.

[Jacquelyn Fusco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so fantastic. I want everyone to read it. It made everything make sense and seem so clear. I will be looking into Harman's other books to see if he can clear up 1999 -2009 for me. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2009 so I'm on my own for the past decade!
History class in school was confusing because it made no sense! Because it wasn't true.

[Celina Culver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two months, 620 pages of socialist world history. Pretty much reminded me of how much more there is to learn, and provided a clear framework to see the world through class struggle.

Less than ten mentions of women, and rly western centric. We can do better 🫠

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

perhaps too ambitious. I felt as though some things were handled in schematic or cursory fashion. not a bad book, just very broad strokes.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[ethanweenis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Capitalism really do be the root of all evil fr

In all seriousness though, there were a few things I liked about this book and a few things I disliked.

First of all, this is a DENSE book. The author faced an extremely difficult challenge in trying to condense 30,000+ years of human history into 600 pages, and I’d say he did a pretty decent job. However, my main gripe with this book is that the writing was very textbook-y. In my opinion, good history books present history in a way that reads like a story, but this one presented it more as just reciting names and facts. There were many times where I found myself needing to reread sections because I sort of just glazed over walls of text that just weren’t presented in a very exciting way. Maybe this says more about me than the writing style, but either way, it did get kind of boring at some points.

The author also seemed to glaze over extremely important world events. The biggest example of this I found was with how he covered WWI. He went into depth on the beginning of the war, mainly focusing on how the public felt about it. However, he never really discusses the end of the war, and instead just moves on without ever really mentioning it again, which I found strange.

My last main gripe was how especially after the middle ages, the author seems to adopt a pretty eurocentric view of history. Again, this was probably due to the fact that he had to condense all of human history into one book, but I would’ve loved to have learned more about what was happening in Africa, Asia, and South America up until the 20th century. The author seems to largely ignore these areas up until the 19th-20th centuries, where he only really talks about them when they’re being colonized by European settlers.

On a positive note, I do have to commend the author for giving a pretty good summary of human history and being able to condense it down to a ~600 page book. I also really appreciate that he included a section at the end of the book with recommendations for further reading of different time periods/events/historical figures. I also liked the timeline he presents at the beginning of each section.

This book also presents human history with a bit of an interesting spin, which is that he focuses on it through the lens of class decisions and how the average person’s life changed throughout history. Especially in today’s world where it seems like wealth and class divisions are larger than ever, it’s interesting to see how this issue has been confronted throughout history, to varying levels of success.

Overall, if you already have a good knowledge of history and you’re looking for a good book that summarizes all of world history, I would recommend this. However, if you’re still sort of new to history (which I am), I think this book might be a bit overwhelming with the sheer amount of information it gives you, that isn’t always presented in the most exciting way.

3.5/5

[Philemon Schott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich fand die Idee, eine Weltgeschichte aus der Perspektive der Menschen zu erzählen, sehr gut. Letztlich war es das aber dann doch nicht. Zum einen fehlten irgendwie bestimmte Gruppen von People, z.B. Frauen (viel zu knapp) und Queers (gar nicht). Der Autor unterteilte außerdem sehr stark in Klassen, was auf Kosten anderer Einteilungen, die man vornehmen hätte können, geschah. Alles in allem wird klar: Es geht hier nicht um People im Sinne von allen Menschen oder in anderen Weltgeschichten unterrepräsentierten Gruppen, sondern um People wie in "People's Republic of China" o.Ä. Ein unmissverständlicherer Titel wäre also eher "Marxistische Weltgeschichte" oder "Materialistische Weltgeschichte" (unten mehr).

Die Nachteile, die so etwas mitbringen kann, werden hier exemplarisch vorgeführt: Zu starker Fokus auf den Westen, Klassen als (fast) unhinterfragte Kategorie und ein immer wieder spürbarer Determinismus (die Welt könne nur zugrunde gehen, wenn sie es nicht schaffe, den Sozialismus als System zu übernehmen). Ich hätte es natürlich geiler gefunden, wenn der Autor mehr aus ethnologischen Quellen geschöpft hätte, aber dafür gibt's ja Graeber und Wengrow.

Man findet das genaue Geschmäckle von Links, das der Autor hier repräsentiert, leider nur heraus, indem man entweder den Autor googelt oder beim Lesen darauf achtet, welche Personen und Gruppen er besonders positiv darstellt (Trotzki und Luxemburg z.B. kriegen all the love - Bernstein und Marcuse im Gegensatz kriegen nicht einen positiven Satz geschenkt). Hätte er wenigstens am Anfang irgendwo offenlegen, dass er Trotzkist ist, wäre das doch hilfreich gewesen.

Erst im letzten Kapitel wird sein Argument, dass kleinteilig über das ganze Buch ausgebreitet wird, deutlich. Angelehnt an das Bon Mot der roten Rosa, dass es nur die Wahl zwischen Sozialismus und Barbarei gäbe, will der Autor das in einer Weltgeschichte irgendwie aufzeigen. Hat mich nur so mäßig überzeugt. Letztlich hat er alles Schlechte irgendwie am Kapitalismus festgemacht, was dann doch zu unterkomplex ist. Das zeigt sich v.a. an der seltsam anmutenden Kritik der realsozialistischen Projekte. Er stellt es oft so dar, dass erst durch die Bemühungen mit dem Kapitalismus mitzuhalten (z.B. im Fall der UdSSR oder China unter Mao) die "Barbarei" auftrat. Das ist schon sehr grob daneben.

Also auch wenn ich sehr Spaß dran hatte, das zu lesen, nur 2 Sterne. Würde es niemandem empfehlen, es sei denn man will unbedingt wissen, wie TrotzkristInnen die Weltgeschichte deuten (wobei ich auch nicht weiß, ob er dafür repräsentativ ist).

[Sam Torgove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah that should about cover everything