A People's History of the World
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A people’s history of the world A people’s history of the world Chris Harman London, Chicago and Sydney A People’s History of the World – Chris Harman First published 1999 Reprinted 2002 Bookmarks Publications Ltd, c/o 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE, England Bookmarks, PO Box 16085, Chicago, Illinois 60616, USA Bookmarks, PO Box A338, Sydney South, NSW 2000, Australia Copyright © Bookmarks Publications Ltd ISBN 1 898876 55 X Printed by Interprint Limited, Malta Cover by Sherborne Design Bookmarks Publications Ltd is linked to an international grouping of socialist organisations: I Australia: International Socialist Organisation, PO Box A338, Sydney South. [email protected] I Austria: Linkswende, Postfach 87, 1108 Wien. [email protected] I Britain: Socialist Workers Party, PO Box 82, London E3 3LH. [email protected] I Canada: International Socialists, PO Box 339, Station E, Toronto, Ontario M6H 4E3. [email protected] I Cyprus: Ergatiki Demokratia, PO Box 7280, Nicosia. [email protected] I Czech Republic: Socialisticka Solidarita, PO Box 1002, 11121 Praha 1. [email protected] I Denmark: Internationale Socialister, PO Box 5113, 8100 Aarhus C. [email protected] I Finland: Sosialistiliitto, PL 288, 00171 Helsinki. [email protected] I France: Socialisme par en bas, BP 15-94111, Arcueil Cedex. [email protected] I Germany: Linksruck, Postfach 304 183, 20359 Hamburg. [email protected] I Ghana: International Socialist Organisation, PO Box TF202, Trade Fair, Labadi, Accra. I Greece: Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma, c/o Workers Solidarity, PO Box 8161, Athens 100 10. [email protected] I Holland: Internationale Socialisten, PO Box 92025, 1090AA Amsterdam. [email protected] I Ireland: Socialist Workers Party, PO Box 1648, Dublin 8. [email protected] I Italy: Comunismo dal Basso, Leeder, CP Bologna, Succ 5. [email protected] I New Zealand: Socialist Workers Organisation, PO Box 13-685, Auckland. [email protected] I Norway: Internasjonale Socialisterr, Postboks 9226, Grønland, 0134 Oslo. [email protected] I Poland: Pracownicza Demokracja, PO Box 12, 01-900 Warszawa 118. [email protected] I Spain: En Lucha, Apartado 563, 08080 Barcelona. [email protected] I United States: Left Turn, PO Box 445, New York, NY 10159-0445. [email protected] I Uruguay: Izquierda Revolucionaria. [email protected] I Zimbabwe: International Socialist Organisation, PO Box 6758, Harare. [email protected] Contents Introduction i Part one: The rise of class societies Prologue: Before class 3 Chapter 1 The neolithic ‘revolution’ 10 Chapter 2 The first civilisations 17 Chapter 3 The first class divisions 22 Chapter 4 Women’s oppression 29 Chapter 5 The first ‘Dark Ages’ 32 Part two: The ancient world Chapter 1 Iron and empires 45 Chapter 2 Ancient India 48 Chapter 3 The first Chinese empires 54 Chapter 4 The Greek city states 63 Chapter 5 Rome’s rise and fall 71 Chapter 6 The rise of Christianity 87 Part three: The ‘Middle Ages’ Chapter 1 The centuries of chaos 103 Chapter 2 China: the rebirth of the empire 106 Chapter 3 Byzantium: the living fossil 117 Chapter 4 The Islamic revolutions 123 Chapter 5 The African civilisations 136 Chapter 6 European feudalism 140 Part four: The great transformation Chapter 1 The conquest of the New Spain 161 Chapter 2 Renaissance to Reformation 172 Chapter 3 The birth pangs of a new order 194 Chapter 4 The last flowering of Asia’s empires 219 Part five: The spread of the new order Chapter 1 A time of social peace 233 Chapter 2 From superstition to science 237 Chapter 3 The Enlightenment 242 Chapter 4 Slavery and wage slavery 247 Chapter 5 Slavery and racism 249 Chapter 6 The economics of ‘free labour’ 257 Part six: The world turned upside down Chapter 1 American prologue 265 Chapter 2 The French Revolution 277 Chapter 3 Jacobinism outside France 303 Chapter 4 The retreat of reason 315 Chapter 5 The industrial revolution 318 Chapter 6 The birth of Marxism 326 Chapter 7 1848 335 Chapter 8 The American Civil War 345 Chapter 9 The conquest of the East 355 Chapter 10 The Japanese exception 365 Chapter 11 Storming heaven: The Paris Commune 368 Part seven: The century of hope and horror Chapter 1 The world of capital 379 Chapter 2 World war and world revolution 405 Chapter 3 Europe in turmoil 430 Chapter 4 Revolt in the colonial world 449 Chapter 5 The ‘Golden Twenties’ 463 Chapter 6 The great slump 469 Chapter 7 Strangled hope: 1934-36 491 Chapter 8 Midnight in the century 510 Chapter 9 The Cold War 543 Chapter 10 The new world disorder 577 Conclusion: Illusion of the epoch 605 Notes 621 Glossary 663 Further Reading 687 Index 695 Chris Harman is the editor of Socialist Worker and a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain. He is the author of many articles, pamphlets and books including Class Struggles in Eastern Europe, Explaining the Crisis, Economics of the Madhouse, How Marxism Works and The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918 to 1923. Introduction Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished Who raised it up so many times? In what houses Of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live? Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished Did the masons go? Great Rome Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis The night the ocean engulfed it The drowning still bawled for their slaves. The young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Did he not have even a cook with him? Philip of Spain wept when his armada Went down. Was he the only one to weep? Frederick the Second won the Seven Years War. Who Else won it? Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors? Every ten years a great man. Who paid the bill? So many reports. So many questions. ‘Questions from a Worker who Reads’ by Bertolt Brecht i A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD The questions raised in Brecht’s poem are crying out for answers. Pro- viding them should be the task of history. It should not be regarded as the preserve of a small group of specialists, or a luxury for those who can afford it. History is not ‘bunk’, as claimed by Henry Ford, pioneer of mass motor car production, bitter enemy of trade unionism and early admirer of Adolf Hitler. History is about the sequence of events that led to the lives we lead today. It is the story of how we came to be ourselves. Under- standing it is the key to finding out if and how we can further change the world in which we live. ‘He who controls the past controls the future,’ is one of the slogans of the totalitarians who control the state in George Orwell’s novel 1984. It is a slogan always taken seriously by those living in the palaces and eating the banquets described in Brecht’s ‘Questions’. Some 22 centuries ago a Chinese emperor decreed the death penalty for those who ‘used the past to criticise the present’. The Aztecs attempted to destroy records of previous states when they con- quered the Valley of Mexico in the 15th century, and the Spanish at- tempted to destroy all Aztec records when they in turn conquered the region in the 1620s. Things have not been all that different in the last century. Chal- lenging the official historians of Stalin or Hitler meant prison, exile or death. Only 30 years ago Spanish historians were not allowed to delve into the bombing of the Basque city of Guernica, or Hungar- ian historians to investigate the events of 1956. More recently, friends of mine in Greece faced trial for challenging the state’s version of how it annexed much of Macedonia before the First World War. Overt state repression may seem relatively unusual in Western in- dustrial countries. But subtler methods of control are ever-present. As I write, a New Labour government is insisting schools must stress British history and British achievements, and that pupils must learn the name and dates of great Britons. In higher education, the histo- rians most in accord with establishment opinions are still the ones who receive honours, while those who challenge such opinions are kept out of key university positions. ‘Compromise, compromise’, remains ‘the way for you to rise.’ Since the time of the first Pharaohs (5,000 years ago) rulers have presented history as being a list of ‘achievements’ by themselves and their forebears. Such ‘Great Men’ are supposed to have built cities ii INTRODUCTION and monuments, to have brought prosperity, to have been respon- sible for great works or military victories—and, conversely, ‘Evil Men’ are supposed to be responsible for everything bad in the world. The first works of history were lists of monarchs and dynasties known as ‘King Lists’. Learning similar lists remained a major part of history as taught in the schools of Britain 40 years ago. New Labour—and the Tory opposition—seem intent on reimposing it. For this version of history, knowledge consists simply in being able to memorise such lists, in the fashion of the ‘Memory Man’ or the Mas- termind contestant. It is a Trivial Pursuits version of history that pro- vides no help in understanding either the past or the present. There is another way of looking at history, in conscious opposition to the ‘Great Man’ approach.