The Paths of History

Diakonoff, Igor M.

ISBN 10: 0521643988 / ISBN 13: 9780521643986

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999

About this Item

Near Fine condition - Card Covers. Foreword by Geoffrey Hosking. Robust, professional packaging and tracking provided for all parcels. xi, 355 pages. A broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx's theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff's theory of world history differs from Marx's in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx's five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how 'each progress is simultaneously a regress', and thirdly 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.

Seller Inventory # 314292

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Paths of History
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521643988
• ISBN 13: 9780521643986
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Edition: 1st Paperback Edition.
• Seller catalogs:
  • History-General

About this title

Synopsis

This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx's theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff's theory of world history differs from Marx's in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx's five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how 'each progress is simultaneously a regress', and thirdly 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 which focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) which have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day.

Review

' ... a remarkable survey of world history by a Russian orientalist, using the Marxist interpretation as a point of departure.' Eric Hobsbawm, New Statesman and Society