1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910811674803321

Autore

Diakonov Igor Mikhailovich

Titolo

The paths of history / / Igor M. Diakonoff

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, U.K. ; ; New York, : Cambridge University Press, 1999

ISBN

1-107-11661-9

0-511-31023-4

0-521-64348-1

1-280-15509-4

0-511-15053-9

0-511-11745-0

0-511-61226-5

0-511-05190-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 355 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

901

Soggetti

History - Philosophy

History - Periodization

Historiography

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preliminaries; Contents; Foreword by Geoffrey Hoskins; Preface; Introduction; 1 First Phase (Primitive); 2 Second Phase (Primitive Communal); 3 Third Phase (Early Antiquity); 4 Fourth Phase (Imperial Antiquity); 5 Fifth Phase (the Middle Ages); 6 Sixth Phase (the Stable Absolutist Post-Medieval Phase); 7 Seventh Phase (Capitalist); 8 Eighth Phase (Post-Capitalist); Index

Sommario/riassunto

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.