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A People’s History of the World

From the Stone Age to the New Millennium

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A People’s History of the World

By: Chris Harman
Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
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Chris Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative of ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals. Interacting with the forces of technological change as well as the impact of powerful individuals and revolutionary ideas, these societies have engendered events familiar to every schoolchild - from the empires of antiquity to the world wars of the 20th century.

In a bravura conclusion, Chris Harman exposes the reductive complacency of contemporary capitalism, and asks, in a world riven as never before by suffering and inequality, why we imagine that it can - or should - survive much longer. Ambitious, provocative and invigorating, A People's History of the World delivers a vital corrective to traditional history, as well as a powerful sense of the deep currents of humanity which surge beneath the froth of government.

©2017 Verso (P)2017 Tantor Freedom & Security Politics & Government World Socialism Ancient History Middle Ages Capitalism Human Rights Imperialism War Africa Self-Determination Latin American Soviet Union Middle East Liberalism Iran Taxation Refugee Russia Winston Churchill Colonial Period United Kingdom Social justice China British Empire Interwar Period World History Nonfiction Science
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Critic reviews

“I have had many people ask me if there is a book which does for world history what my book A People's History of the United States does for this country. I always responded that I know of only one book that accomplishes this extremely difficult task, and that is Chris Harman's A People's History of the World. It is an indispensable volume on my reference bookshelf." (Howard Zinn)
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This is a brilliant book. It demonstrates that all history is the history of class struggle.
But this narration is terrible, its almost sarcastic in the tone it adopts to the text.
There are pdf versions of the book available for free if you search, and second-hand paper copies are very cheap (in UK), which I resorted to in the end. Well worth it. A paper copy also allows you, via the index, to refer to periods or events in history and see a clear analysis of what was happening from a class perspective.

Brilliant book, the narrator misses the point

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Tried to listen, his monotone and non-engaging voice threw me off. Struggled to listen. Would be nice if it wasn't inherently politically biased. I want to know the facts.

Get a different narrator

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The book is excellent and really important right now as we see that capitalism is destroying the world.
But the narration is not good - I could only listen to it in tranches. The phrasing was formulaic regardless of sentence structure.

Brilliant book, poor performance

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read as if it's Jackanory. as if reading a bedtime story to a toddler, i persevered because of the subject matter only. Very patronisingly read. annoying.

awful narration

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A great overview of history from a Marxist perspective if slightly western centric at times.

Great overview of leftist world history

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