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.
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.
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 transform the world.
The complex societies that emerged from the division of society into classes also created societies that were wasteful, violent, stagnant and crisis prone. Understanding why is the key to how history happens argues Neil Faulkner.
Why did Bronze Age empires rise and fall amid crisis and war? And why did this contradictory social form simply replicate itself over long periods of time? Neil Faulkner looks at the evidence.
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.
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.
The Early Neolithic economy was doomed by insoluble contradictions. Technique was primitive and wasteful. Society lacked reserves against natural disaster and hard times. Virgin land ran out as old fields were exhausted and populations grew.
In part three of Neil Faulkner's Marxist history series he reveals how the advent of farming lead to primitive communistic societies who through land depletion and scarcity of resources would be forced into global war.
In the second of his regular series Neil Faulkner reveals the incredible innovation and adaptability of our ancient ancestors, their unique combination of language and imagination and how cultures formed to fit the different environments in which early societies lived and worked.
Paul Foot reviews The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield. The book covers the collapse of Liberalism in the early 20th century and growing resistance from the downtrodden.
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.
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.
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 transform the world.
The complex societies that emerged from the division of society into classes also created societies that were wasteful, violent, stagnant and crisis prone. Understanding why is the key to how history happens argues Neil Faulkner.
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.
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.
The Early Neolithic economy was doomed by insoluble contradictions. Technique was primitive and wasteful. Society lacked reserves against natural disaster and hard times. Virgin land ran out as old fields were exhausted and populations grew.
In part three of Neil Faulkner's Marxist history series he reveals how the advent of farming lead to primitive communistic societies who through land depletion and scarcity of resources would be forced into global war.
In the second of his regular series Neil Faulkner reveals the incredible innovation and adaptability of our ancient ancestors, their unique combination of language and imagination and how cultures formed to fit the different environments in which early societies lived and worked.
Paul Foot reviews The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield. The book covers the collapse of Liberalism in the early 20th century and growing resistance from the downtrodden.