A Marxist
History of the World: From Neanderthals to Neoliberals
by Neil Faulkner
Pluto Press 2013
352pp
ISBN
9780745332147
Marxism looks at
historical grand narratives and the sweep of history (although not only that obviously)
and Marx in the Communist Manifesto ventured on a brief summary.
Since then a handful
of books in the English language (there are others beyond the scope of this review)
have attempted to summarise the broad range of history from a Marxist perspective.
Probably the
best known is A.L. Morton’s A People’s History of England (1938) which
is still worth a
read today. Morton was a member of the Communist Party Historians Group. More
recently the late Chris Harman has produced a similar volume (A People’s History of the
World)
but extended its scope world-wide.
Neil Faulkner
keeps the world wide scope but has aimed to produce a Marxist rather than a people’s
history. The difference may be subtle but perhaps revolves around a popular history of struggle
on the one hand and one that seeks to make more overtly political points in terms of
indicating a strategy for today on the other.
Faulkner’s book
comes from a regular piece he wrote for the Counterfire website so each chapter can be
seen as an individual entry, rather than the book being written in more
traditional format. However, as the author notes, the original blog entries have
been re-worked and regrouped so the book can be read in its entirety or as a
series of historical episodes.
The author, of
course, follows an historical trajectory from ancient - his particular area - to modern and
admits in the introduction to certain biases, primarily euro- and perhaps even anglo-centrism.
These can be forgiven since no one, the author included, is saying that the volume
is the last word on things.
Readers may have
their disagreements with this or that characterisation made by Faulkner. I’m not
clear why he uses the word ‘decay’ to reflect the defeat of revolution in
Russia once Stalinism got a
grip for example (p221). However, that kind of discussion is for the back rooms of pubs or
corners of coffee bars.
In general Faulkner
gives a well informed and well written whistle stop tour of the history of the world from a
Marxist perspective exactly as the book’s title indicates. It may be that in
the balance between the impact of material forces and the ability of ordinary
people to change the world despite this, that the book errs a little more to
the latter than might be historically justified.
However, its sense
of the historical process remains in my view excellent. For example a short piece on
‘how history works’ raises the important point of the relationship between core
and periphery with an understanding that change often starts first at the
margins.
There are one or
two more serious criticisms. It may just have been the fact that the book was constructed
from web entries, but it does rather skate over the issue of women’s fight for
equality and liberation.
It is strong on
issues like imperialism, war and racism, as it should be, but again perhaps rather
less good on more mundane but over time as important matters such as the fight
for adult suffrage, civil rights and so on.
To give the
reader a more general sense of where Faulkner comes from in the book I couldn’t
spot any characterisation of a Marxist historian like E.P. Thompson or a Marxist
historical debate that is not well within the bounds of existing orthodoxies.
In other words, and
in many ways quite rightly, Faulkner’s concern here is getting across the pattern
of the historical grand narrative rather than pursuing potentially ground
breaking but controversial historiographical points.
As a book to
read along with A.L. Morton’s and Chris Harman’s it is certainly a worthwhile
volume
Keith Flett
From LSHG Newsletter # 50 (Autumn 2013)
