Synopses & Reviews
It seems as if we face crisis after crisis. Financial meltdowns have triggered seemingly permanent stagnation. Wars are shaking the global order. Inequality grows staggeringly greater by the year. Unchecked global warming threatens our very existence. Our governments seem too hollow and tired to offer any solutions.
It’s all true—and System Crash explains why it’s happening. Step by step, the authors lead readers through these compounding crises to reveal their roots in the essentially pathological character of neoliberal capitalism, with its insatiable hunger for growth and refusal to account for consequences. The system, they argue, is unreformable—leaving humanity at a crossroads. Do we choose a descent into war, barbarism, and climate catastrophe? Or do we choose collective action, a movement to overthrow the lords of capital and build a new world based on democracy, equality, and solidarity?
Pugnacious, pointed, and unabashedly apocalyptic, System Crash lays bare the causes of the many problems we face and sounds a clarion call for real, lasting, fundamental change.
Synopsis
This magisterial analysis of human history - from "Lucy," the first hominid, to the Great Recession of 2008 - combines the insights of earlier generations of Marxist historians with radical new ideas about the historical process.Reading history against the grain, Neil Faulkner reveals that what happened in the past was not predetermined. Choices were frequent and numerous. Different outcomes - liberation or barbarism - were often possible. Rejecting the top-down approach of conventional history, Faulkner contends that it is the mass action of ordinary people that drives great events.At the beginning of the 21st century - with economic disaster, war, climate catastrophe and deep class divisions - humans face perhaps the greatest crisis in the long history of our species. The lesson of A Marxist History of the World is that, since we created our past, we can also create a better future.
Synopsis
Magisterial analysis of human history, from the first hominid to the Great Recession of 2008. Written from the perspective of ordinary men and women.
About the Author
Neil Faulkner is a leading archaeologist and historian, editor of Military Times magazine, and co-director of the Great Arab Revolt Project.Samir Dathi is a campaigning lawyer specializing in information law and human rights.Marianna Pope-Weidemann is a writer, television producer, activist, and journalist.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why History Matters
1. Hunters and Farmers
2. The First Class Societies
3. Ancient Empires
4. The End of Antiquity
5. The Medieval World
6. European Feudalism
7. The First Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions
8. The Second Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions
9. The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
10. The Age of Blood and Iron
11. Imperialism and War
12. The Revolutionary Wave
13. The Great Depression
14. World War and Cold War
15. The New World Disorder
Conclusion: Making the Future
Timeline
Sources
Index