Ancient Societies

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Connexions Library

The History of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation
Roper, Brian S.
Book
2013
Roper traces the history of democracy from ancient Athens to the emergence of liberal representative and socialist participatory democracy. He argues that democracy cannot be understood separately fro...
Karl Marx and the Iroquois: An essay on Marx's Ethnological Notebooks
Rosemont, Franklin
Article
Franklin Rosemont delves into Marx's Ethnological Notebooks and examines their significance and relevance towards today's communist movement.
Marx and Engels Collected Works Volume 26: Engels 1882 - 1889
Engels, Friedrich
Book
1889
Includes Manuscripts on Early German History and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, and The Role of Force in His...
A Marxist History of the World part 10: Men of Iron
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
The constant rise and fall of Bronze age societies was a product of their wasteful, crisis ridden nature. But in the barbarian periphery around 1300 BCE an industrial revolution had begun that was to ...
A Marxist History of the World Part 11: Western Asia: the Persian Empire
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the centuries following 1000 BCE when the scale of civilisation and empire exploded as the productivity of iron tools boosted the surpluses available to Iron Age empire-builders...
A Marxist History of the World part 12: India: the Mauryan Empire
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the growth of the Mauryan Empire which at its zenith encompassed almost the whole of what is today India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
A Marxist History of the World part 13: China: the Ch'in Empire
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the origins of the Ch'in Empire - short-lived, created by conquest and terror and characterised by extreme centralisation, military-style exploitation, and murderous repression.
A Marxist History of the World part 14: The Greek Democratic Revolution
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the radical participatory democracy which began in Athens between 510 and 506 BCE and spread to virtually every city-state in the Aegean.
A Marxist History of the World part 15: The Macedonian Empire
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the defeat of the democratic empire centred around Athens in a protracted counter-revolution led by Greek aristocrats, Macedonian kings, and Roman viceroys.
A Marxist History of the World part 16: Roman Military Imperialism
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Rome represented a unique fusion of Greek-style citizenship with Macedonian-style militarism. The result was the most dynamic imperialist state in the ancient world.
A Marxist History of the World part 17: The Roman Revolution
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the Roman Revolution - a complex, distorted, century-long process of class struggle.
A Marxist History of the World part 18: The Crisis of Late Antiquity
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner explains how the Roman Empire entered its terminal crisis as its military imperialism came up against geographical, economic, and sociological barriers to expansion.
A Marxist History of the World part 19: Mother-goddesses and power-deities
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner looks at how the growth of private property altered the position of women - from occupying a central role in society to suffering what Engels called ‘the world historic defeat of the fem...
A Marxist History of the World part 20: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner examines how the three great monotheistic religions produced by the contradictions of the ancient world owed their extraordinary power to their origins in the myths and rituals of the op...
A Marxist History of the World part 21: Huns, Goths, and Romans
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner charts the transformation of the Huns from tribal nomads into continent-straddling militarists.
A Marxist History of the World part 22: Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
This week Neil Faulkner describes the rise and explosive spread of the third great monotheistic religion, where compassion, charity, and protection became moral imperatives - Islam.
A Marxist History of the World part 23: The Abbasid Revolution
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Islam created a single overarching allegiance throughout the Arab-ruled world yet the Middle East came to be a divided region of weak and unpopular states. Neil Faulkner looks at the conflicts that la...
A Marxist History of the World part 24: Hindus, Buddhists, and the Gupta Empire
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
More than half a millennium separated the fall of India’s Mauryan Empire in the late 3rd century BCE (before the common era) from the rise of the Gupta Empire in the early 4th century CE (common era)....
A Marxist History of the World part 25: Chinese History's Revolving Door: Door
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
Neil Faulkner examines China's imperial history, where for two millennia political revolution did not lead to social transformation, but simply to the replacement of one dynasty by another.
A Marxist History of the World part 27: New World Empires: Maya, Aztec, and Inca
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2011
The early civilisations of the Americas were limited by its geography - in only two areas did urban revolution occur and civilisations develop: in parts of Mesoamerica, and in the Central Andes.
A Marxist History of the World part 29: The peculiarity of Europe: e
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2011
Why Europe? Why was it that the second great transformation in human existence - the development of capitalism and industrial society - was pioneered on the western edge of the Eurasian land-mass?
A Marxist History of the World part 30: The rise of western feudalism
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2011
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire Western Europe became a politically fragmented region of warring states from which a radically new social, military, and political order developed.
A Marxist History of the World part 33: The class struggle in medieval Europe
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2011
Despite dominating western Europe in the 11th century by the 14th century Feudalism was faced with a crisis that generated a wave of revolutionary struggle. Neil Faulkner looks at the causes and outco...
A Marxist History of the World part 6: The First Ruling Class
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
This week Neil Faulkner looks at the rise of the first ruling classes as the surplus created through the increasing productivity of human labour allowed a section of society to live without producing.
A Marxist History of the World part 7: The Spread of Civilisation
Faulkner, Neil
Article
2010
This week Neil Faulkner looks at the spread and development of ancient city civilisations around the world, each governed by a new ruling class of priests, city-governors and war-leaders.

Sources Library

Ancient Greece, the Middle East and an ancient cultural internet
Higgins, Charlotte
2013
The ancient Greek world is being recast from an isolated entity to one of many hybrid cultures in Africa and in the East.
Slavery in ancient Greece
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia
Slavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece throughout its rich history, as it was in other societies of the time including ancient Israel and early Christian societies.
Slavery in ancient Rome
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia