Class analysis on pre hellenic man

[Revolution starts with U]

Looking for info/class analysis of pre hellenic, and even early hellenic and its contemporaries; egypt, akkad, sumer, carthage, etc. Also persian, indic, and chinese would be good too, basically looking for pre-500bce world history from a class perspective.

Thanks much

[ridethejetski]

Chris Harman's A People's History of the World will cover most of those areas from a Marxist perspective. He makes use of a lot of sources, so by looking at who he cites you can explore it further and in more depth i guess.

Edit: just noticed you are a regular and long time user of this site so will have probably heard of the book before, apologies for the excitement seeing a reply post to your thread may have bought you

[Revolution starts with U]

I had heard of Zimm's people's history, but not that one :lol: (Just goes to show, don't believe "time spent" or "committed user" amounts to all that much)

[Revolution starts with U]

Anybody else? I am specifically looking for information on the original creation of "property" and "statism," and I am looking for this from a data perspective, not necessarily theory.

[Revolution starts with U]

Hey Jet, thanks for the source. I've found it and it's sources very helpful.

If anyone has anything to offer I would be much obliged. This will be my last bump, tho I might make a different thread from a different perspective.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Ancient Mesopotamia was actually pretty complex (for it's time, of course). Including the economic system...David Graeber mentions in his book about debt that one of the earliest known examples of "credit" was practiced by merchants in ancient Sumeria.

[ridethejetski]

I'm not sure how relevant this may be but Gordon Childe's was a Marxist archaeologist. I havnt read much and I don't know much about ancient/pre-history so I'm not sure if he covered any of the stuff you are interested in, but he may be worth a look into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._Gordon_Childe


Also theres a book [I]Class Struggle in Ancient the Greek World/I] by a Marxist. I havnt read it though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Class_Struggle_in_the_Ancient_Greek_World

[Raúl Duke]

I am specifically looking for information on the original creation of "property" and "statism,"You'll probably need to look at anthropological sources; stuff written by archeologists (although I'm assuming here that the creation of private property and statism comes before the written language; even if it didn't I bet written historical sources on the subject are scant/lost through time/on stone,etc).

On this subject, they don't exactly have to be Marxist. The question of the formation/nascent creation of private property and maybe the rise of "the state" are questions that many archaeologists and anthropologists have tried looking for answers. Even the issue of class, although a Marxian would probably deal with it in the angle you're looking for (plus focus perhaps a bit more on the subject of class tension/struggle).

[Revolution starts with U]

You'll probably need to look at anthropological sources; stuff written by archeologists (although I'm assuming here that the creation of private property and statism comes before the written language; even if it didn't I bet written historical sources on the subject are scant/lost through time/on stone,etc)

It definitely did. But a lot of our work, as anthropologists/archaeologists, is in contextual forensics.

I'm really seeing if anyone knows about past work in the same direction as me, so I can skip the whole process of combing through 50 years of anthro journals :lol:

[Raúl Duke]

I'm sorry, I don't really know any work that is specific on that question (and when I type "origin of private property" on google I get either some classical liberal stuff, some libertarian stuff, or leftists talking about "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State" rather than anything anthropological).

I wonder if there's a book out there that traces multiple origins of property across different regions (I'm assuming that, in the West, we get ours from Rome/Greece/etc. But what about China? India? Property in the Americas pre-columbus?) and writes on their development/evolution.