Historical Theory

Product Information

Although the heads of states apply definite policies, and peoples and individuals consciously pursue their own aims, historical actuality does not fall into line or accord with their plans. But they remained unable to uncover the fundamental determinants which led to the reconstruction and replacement of property relations as well as political forms. The formation, reformation and transformation of social structures over the past million years cannot be understood by recourse to any supernatural beings, ideal agencies, petty personal or invariant causes.

But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. Every type of state is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred relations of production and its exploitation onto society. Marxism builds on this insight that history is the result of the collective actions of multitudes, of mass effort extending over prolonged periods within the framework of the powers of production they have received and extended and the modes of production they have created, built up and revolutionised. Thus, throughout history, in all societies and in all modes of production, from the earliest paleolithic hunter gatherers, through to feudal societies and to modern capitalist economies, there is an 'everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence' which compels humans to join together socially to produce their means of subsistence.

As Charles Taylor puts it, "These two directions of influence are so far from being rivals that they are actually complementary. Post-Postmodernism: Directions and Interrogations This important handbook brings together in one volume discussions of the role of modernity, empiricism, realism, post-modernity and deconstruction in the historian's craft. The need for theorising about history or the nature of society does not arise until civilisation is well advanced and sudden, violent, and far-reaching upheavals in social relations take place during the lifetime of individuals or within the memories of their elders.

That is to say, we all laid, and were bound to lay, the main emphasis, in the first place, on the derivation of political, juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through the medium of these notions, from basic economic facts.

Hegel brought forward the profound truth later developed by historical materialism that labour is imposed upon man as the consequence of his needs and that man is the historical product of his own labour. This means that all parts of society, for example, science, art, law, labor and the economy, the state and the family etc.

D. Kosambi, who attributes “the total lack of historical sense” in ancient India to the narrow outlook of village life bound up with its mode of agricultural production. All the different types of historical explanation cast up in the evolution of man’s thought survive today. This superstructure not only has its origin in the economic base, but its features also ultimately correspond to the character and development of that economic base, i. Until several thousand years ago, peoples took their own particular organisation of social relations for granted. Moreover, surrounding communities, so far as they are known (and acquaintance does not extend very far either in space or time), are much the same.

Human nature, like nature itself, was regarded as rigid and unchanging from one generation to another. In his idea of a future communist society, Marx explains that classes would no longer exist, and therefore the exploitation of one class by another is abolished. One of them was expressed in the activation of national life and national movements against the oppressors. The main modes of production that Marx identified include primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism and communism.

Slave societies, the ancient mode of production, were formed as productive forces advanced, namely due to agriculture and its ensuing abundance which led to the abandonment of nomadic society. her comprehensive book is a sound and useful overview, even for students, who seek for a basic understanding of some of the major issues of historical theory. Under such circumstances, neither society in general nor one’s own special mode of living is looked upon as a peculiar object which is worth special attention and study. These earliest sociologists taught that mankind had climbed from savagery to civilisation by imitating nature and improving upon her operations. are all interconnected and mutually influential and therefore cannot be properly understood or analysed in isolation.Hegel historicised philosophical thought and saw it as an expression of a specific culture rather than an eternal truth. Comparisons with other peoples, or between Greek states in different stages of social, economic, and political development, produced a comparative history along with the first inklings of historical progression. Socio-economic formations have grown out of the productive forces at hand; its members have fashioned their relations, customs, institutions and ideas in accordance with their organisation of labour. Subsequently, the new capitalist mode of production also began expanding into other societies that had not yet developed a capitalist system (e. The votaries of “the personality cult” sought to fuse the traditions and views of Marxism, the most modern and scientific philosophy, with the archaic Great Man version of the contemporary historical process.