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Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction To The Sociology Of Knowledge (Routledge Classics In Sociology Ser.)
by Karl MannheimThis book is concerned with the problem of how men actually think. The aim of these studies is to investigate not how thinking appears in textbooks on logic, but how it really functions in public life and in politics as an instrument of collective action.Philosophers have too long concerned themselves with their own thinking. When they wrote of thought, they had in mind primarily their own history, the history of philosophy, or quite special fields of knowledge such as mathematics or physics. This type of thinking is applicable only under quite special circumstances, and what can be learned by analysing it is not directly transferable to other spheres of life. Even when it is applicable, it refers only to a specific dimension of existence which does not suffice for living human beings who are seeking to comprehend and to mould their world.Meanwhile, acting men have, for better or for worse, proceeded to develop a variety of methods for the experiential and intellectual penetration of the world in which they live, which have never been analysed with the same precision as the so-called exact modes of knowing. When, however, any human activity continues over a long period without being subjected to intellectual control or criticism, it tends to get out of hand.
Kings Dethroned: A History Of The Evolution Of Astronomy From The Time Of The Roman Empire Up To The Present Day; Showing It To Be An Amazing Series
by Gerrard HicksonAt the turn of the twentieth century, Gerrard Hickson stumbled upon a discovery which convinced him of something shocking. The giants of astronomy had miscalculated the distance of the sun from the Earth, it was closer than we ever thought. The popular estimate of approximately ninety-three million miles appeared to be a mistake, as inconceivable as it seemed.Hickson pored through the methods that his predecessors had used to calculate the distance and the accounts of their work, searching for the means to disprove his theory but instead he found a mistake in Dr. Hailey’s diurnal method. Invented by Hailey in the nineteenth century and used as a basis for many other calculations about our solar system.We can only imagine that Hickson must have gritted his teeth when he set himself the challenge of proving Dr. Hailey’s error. Kings Dethroned is the result of his research, and through his retracing of the steps of astronomers from the Roman Empire all the way up to the present day, we can see an accurate representation of the planets and our sun.Gerrard Hickson, unlike his predecessors, took his findings to the general public and published this book for the consumption of all. Having been rejected or ignored by experts and scientific societies across the western world, he chose to trust in the public. He felt that the truth and his discovery were the wealth of the whole human species and in this modern age it does the reader only good to contemplate the necessity of constant and honest scientific enquiry.
The Hybrid-Corn Makers: Prophets of Plenty
by A. Richard CrabbLong before history began to be recorded, man strove constantly to get plants that would produce greater amounts of food with less labor. Sometimes he obtained this improvement by increasing the food-producing ability of an existing plant, at other times by selecting a more capable new plant. Hybrid corn is the greatest example in recent time of increasing the value of a food-bearing plant by improving one already in common use. The development of hybrid corn is truly one of the most important advances made in all the thousands of years since man first began cultivating special food-bearing plants.What is hybrid corn, and how does it differ from the corn grown before it was developed?
Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer (Series In Science)
by Douglas McKieANTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER is heralded as the founder of modern chemistry whose genius was cut short by the brutal Revolutionary terror of the French Revolution. "Only a moment to chop off that head," said Lagrange the mathematician to Delambre, one of the inventors of the metric system, "and a hundred years may not give us another like it."Until Antoine Lavoisier, all matter was believed to be composed of four elements: earth, water, air and fire. It was Lavoisier who first showed that Nature was made out of much more complicated stuff, and that bodies burn not by releasing their fire element, but by combining with the element oxygen, the same element that enables plants and animals to breathe.
The Autobiography of Robert A Millikan
by Robert A. MillikanRobert Millikan tells his story in his own words. “This book represents an effort to record and appraise some of the changes which have come under the eyes of one particular observer of the rapidly changing scene. I shall begin, however, in 1825, some forty years before my birth.”“The Autobiography of Robert A. Millikan is one of the most outstanding works of its kind done by an American man of science. The treatment is lucid and brings out in clear relief not only the activities of the man himself but of those, and there are many, with whom he has associated and collaborated in the fields of teaching, research, and administration. The autobiography is that of a dynamic personality associated with patience, persistence and enthusiasm. The treatment is free from egotism and refreshingly frank and forthright.” — B. J. Spence, American Journal of Physics“Robert Andrews Millikan is one of the most distinguished physicists in the world and his autobiography will interest not only the entire scientific world, but the reading public at large... It is refreshing and helpful for younger [scientific] workers to read... that only after many discouraging attempts did [Millikan’s] great researches on the determination of the electronic charge and his proof of the Einstein photoelectric law emerge.” — Robert S. Shankland, Physics Today“It is seldom that a man is so successful in getting his personality into his own writing about himself... The book is much more than the record of the life of one man,... it is a history of the physics of his time, and as such will find its place among the other histories of the most memorable decades that physics has yet experienced.” — P. W. Bridgman, Science
The Mind of Plato
by A. E. TaylorThrough his own writings and inspiration of Aristotle and countless others, Plato continues to influence every area of philosophic thought, to say nothing of his enormous influence on Christian theology. His dramatic dialogues, including Republic, the monumental treatise on the ideal state, render him one of the greatest of Greek literary geniuses.In this concise analysis, eminent Plato scholar A. E. Taylor examines the philosopher's theory of knowledge and doctrine of ideas; the ideal of the philosopher-king; the social system advocated in Republic; judgments on democracy; and belief in the immortality of the soul. Also considered: Plato's relationship with his master, Socrates; contribution to the idea of university education; attack on art; abstention from public life; anticipation of Copernicus. Taylor also mentions historical misunderstandings of the one he deems the most original and influential of all philosophers.-Print ed.“A. E. Taylor’s THE MIND OF PLATO is the work of a scholar of great eminence and the best brief introduction to Plato that I know.”—JOHN WILD“This short work, by one of the great Platonic authorities, presents the career and thought of Plato without the dogmatic, technical, or sentimental clichés found in many expositions of Platonism.”-RICHARD McKEON
Between Man and Man (Routledge Classics Ser.)
by Martin BuberIn 1923 a small book was published which was to have enormous impact on more than one generation of theologians and philosophers of religion, Christian and Jew alike, as well as on countless laymen. The book was entitled I and Thou; the author was Martin Buber. Its main point was that all real life is encounter or meeting, to which a man must bring his whole being, his genuine self. This concern with dialogue has marked all Buber’s subsequent works. Between Man and Man takes this dialogical principle and in five related essays applies it to critical problems of modern life, such as politics and education.MARTIN BUBER was born in Vienna in 1878. Educated at the universities of Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, and Zurich, he became editor of the Vienna Welt, a Zionist periodical. In 1916 he founded Der Jude, which rapidly became the principal voice of German-speaking Jewry and which he edited until 1924. He taught at the University of Frankfurt and directed the educational activities of the Jewish community there during the Nazi rise to power. In 1938 Buber left Germany for Jerusalem, where he was named professor of social philosophy at the Hebrew University. His works include books on Hasidism and Zionism as well as philosophy.
A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete
by Geo MaherIf police are the problem, what’s the solution? <p><p> Tens of millions of people poured onto the streets for Black Lives Matter, bringing with them a wholly new idea of public safety, common security, and the delivery of justice, communicating that vision in the fiery vernacular of riot, rebellion, and protest. A World Without Police transcribes these new ideas—written in slogans and chants, over occupied bridges and hastily assembled barricades—into a compelling, must-read manifesto for police abolition. <p><p> Compellingly argued and lyrically charged, A World Without Police offers concrete strategies for confronting and breaking police power, as a first step toward building community alternatives that make the police obsolete. Surveying the post-protest landscape in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as the people who have experimented with policing alternatives at a mass scale in Latin America, Maher details the institutions we can count on to deliver security without the disorganizing interventions of cops: neighborhood response networks, community-based restorative justice practices, democratically organized self-defense projects, and well-resourced social services. <p><p> A World Without Police argues that abolition is not a distant dream or an unreachable horizon but an attainable reality. In communities around the world, we are beginning to glimpse a real, lasting justice in which we keep us safe.
Nevertheless: Machiavelli, Pascal
by Carlo GinzburgFrom the master of "micro-history" a reconstruction of two contrasting early-modern thinkersNevertheless comprises essays on Machiavelli and on Pascal. The ambivalent connection between the two parts is embodied by the comma (,) in the subtitle: Machiavelli, Pascal. Is this comma a conjunction or a disjunction?In fact, both. Ginzburg approaches Machiavelli's work from the perspective of casuistry, or case-based ethical reasoning. For as Machiavelli indicated through his repeated use of the adverb nondimanco ("nevertheless"), there is an exception to every rule. Such a perspective may seem to echo the traditional image of Machiavelli as a cynical, "machiavellian" thinker. But a close analysis of Machiavelli the reader, as well as of the ways in which some of Machiavelli's most perceptive readers read his work, throws a different light on Machiavelli the writer. The same hermeneutic strategy inspires the essays on the Provinciales, Pascal's ferocious attack against Jesuitical casuistry.Casuistry vs anti-casuistry; Machiavelli's secular attitude towards religion vs Pascal's deep religiosity. We are confronted, apparently, with two completely different worlds. But Pascal read Machiavelli, and reflected deeply upon his work. A belated, contemporary echo of this reading can unveil the complex relationship between Machiavelli and Pascal - their divergences as well as their unexpected convergences.
Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis
by Alberto ToscanoHow do we understand the return of fascism today?In a world shaken by ecological, economic and political crises, the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand. How should we name, map and respond to this state of affairs?Late Fascism turns to theories of fascism produced in the past century, testing their capacity to illuminate our moment and challenging many of the commonplaces that debate on this extremely charged term devolves into. It can be tempting for any contemporary assessment of fascism to reach for historical analogy. Fascism is defined by returns and repetitions, but it is not best approached in terms of steps and checklists dictated by a selective reading of Italian Fascism or National Socialism.Rather than treating fascism as an unrepeatable phenomenon or identifying it with a settled configuration of European parties, regimes, and ideologies, Toscano approaches fascism as a problem and a process, one that is intimately linked to capitalism's demands for domination. Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of racial fascism, Late Fascism makes clear the limits of identifying fascism simply with the political violence of bygone European regimes. Developing anti-fascist theory is a vital and urgent task. From the "Great Replacement" to campaigns against critical race theory and "gender ideology", today's global far-right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial regimes. Late Fascism allows us to rediscover some truly inspiring anti-fascist thinkers, rooted in their turn in largely anonymous collective practices of worldmaking against domination, traditions of the oppressed that remain a resource for those set on dismantling the hierarchies and segregations that the partisans of Order and Tradition seek to revive and reimpose.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
by Andreas MalmProperty will cost us the earthThe science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With the stakes so high, why haven't we moved beyond peaceful protest?In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop--with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women's suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.
On Extinction: Beginning Again At The End
by Ben Ware"This path-breaking book by one of the sharpest minds in contemporary philosophy will live on for a very long time."—Dany Nobus, author of Critique of Psychoanalytic ReasonPhilosophy at the end of the worldOn Extinction takes us on a breathtaking philosophical journey through desperate territory. As we face &‘the end of all things&’, Ben Ware argues we must face our apocalyptic future without flinching. In fact, extinction is the very lens through which we should examine our current reality.Radical politics today should not be concerned with merely averting the worst but rather with beginning again at the end. To think about the future in this way is itself a form of liberation that might incubate the necessary radical solutions we need.Combining lessons from Kant, Hegel, Adorno, and Lacan, as well as drawing on popular culture and ecology, Ware recasts the most urgent issue of our times and resolves that we can only consider our collective end by treating it as a starting point.
Class War: A Literary History
by Mark StevenA bold new history of the global class war A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter. Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system. In our age of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and planetary unrest, Steven tells the stories of those whose actions will help guide future militants toward a revolutionary horizon.
Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction
by Kevin Coleman Daniel JamesA provocative exploration of photography's relationship to capitalism, from leading theorists of visual culture.Photography was invented between the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx and Frederick Engels's The Communist Manifesto. Taking the intertwined development of capitalism and the camera as their starting point, the essays in Capitalism and the Camera investigate the relationship between capitalist accumulation and the photographic image, and ask whether photography might allow us to refuse capitalism's violence--and if so, how?Drawn together in productive disagreement, the essays in this collection explore the relationship of photography to resource extraction and capital accumulation, from 1492 to the postcolonial; the camera's potential to make visible critical understandings of capitalist production and society, especially economies of class and desire; and propose ways that the camera and the image can be used to build cultural and political counterpublics from which a democratic struggle against capitalism might emerge.With essays by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Siobhan Angus, Kajri Jain, Walter Benn Michaels, T. J. Clark, John Paul Ricco, Blake Stimson, Chris Stolarski, Tong Lam, and Jacob Emery.
The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence
by The Care CollectiveWe are in the midst of a global crisis of care. How do we get out of it?The Care Manifesto puts care at the heart of the debates of our current crisis: from intimate care--childcare, healthcare, elder care--to care for the natural world. We live in a world where carelessness reigns, but it does not have to be this way.The Care Manifesto puts forth a vision for a truly caring world. The authors want to reimagine the role of care in our everyday lives, making it the organising principle in every dimension and at every scale of life. We are all dependent on each other, and only by nurturing these interdependencies can we cultivate a world in which each and every one of us can not only live but thrive.The Care Manifesto demands that we must put care at the heart of the state and the economy. A caring government must promote collective joy, not the satisfaction of individual desire. This means the transformation of how we organise work through co-operatives, localism and nationalisation. It proposes the expansion of our understanding of kinship for a more 'promiscuous care'. It calls for caring places through the reclamation of public space, to make a more convivial city. It sets out an agenda for the environment, most urgent of all, putting care at the centre of our relationship to the natural world.
This is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain
by William DaviesWhat just happened and how did we get into this mess?Since 2016, the UK has been in a crisis of its own making: but this is not the fault of Brexit but of a larger problem of our politics. The status of political parties, the mainstream media, public experts and officials have all been disrupted. Along the way, there have been shocking and exhilarating events: the unforeseen 2017 election result, the horrific details of Grenfell Tower and the Windrush scandal, the sudden rise and fall of the Brexit Party.As the 'mainstream' of politics and media has come under attack, the basic norms of public life have been thrown into question.This Is Not Normal takes stock of a historical moment that no longer recognises itself. Davies tells a story of the apparently chaotic and irrational events, and extracts their underlying logic and long-term causes. What we are seeing is the effects of the 2008 financial crash, the failure of the British neoliberal project, the dying of Empire, and the impact of the changes that technology and communications have had on the idea of the public sphere as well as the power of information. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to make sense of this current moment.
Self Defense: A Philosophy of Violence
by Elsa DorlinA brilliant study of violent self-defense in the struggle for liberation by an award-winning philosopherIs violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. In 1685, for example, France's infamous "Code Noir" forbade slaves from carrying weapons, under penalty of the whip. In nineteenth-century Algeria, the colonial state outlawed the use of arms by Algerians, but granted French settlers the right to bear arms. Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense.Here, philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left - from slave revolts to the knitting women of the French Revolution and British suffragists' training in ju-jitsu, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, from queer neighborhood patrols to Black Lives Matter, to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense. In this history she finds a "martial ethics of the self": a practice in which violent self defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a liveable future. In this sparkling and provocative book, drawing on theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Fred Hampton, Frantz Fanon to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault to June Jordan, Dorlin has reworked the very idea of modern governance and political subjectivity.Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.
Feminist Antifascism: Counterpublics of the Common
by Ewa MajewskaFeminism as the bulwark against fascismIn this exciting, innovative work, Polish feminist philosopher Ewa Majewska proposes a specifically feminist politics of antifascism. Mixing theoretical discussion with engaging reflections on personal experiences, Majewska proposes what she calls “counterpublics of the common” and “weak resistance,” offering an alternative to heroic forms of subjectivity produced by neoliberal capitalism and contemporary fascism.
Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planetand What We Can Do About It
by Nancy FraserA trenchant look at contemporary capitalism&’s insatiable appetite—and a rallying cry for everyone who wants to stop it from devouring our world Capital is currently cannibalizing every sphere of life–guzzling wealth from nature and racialized populations, sucking up our ability to care for each other, and gutting the practice of politics. In this tightly argued and urgent volume, leading Marxist feminist theorist Nancy Fraser charts the voracious appetite of capital, tracking it from crisis point to crisis point, from ecological devastation to the collapse of democracy, from racial violence to the devaluing of care work. These crisis points all come to a head in Covid-19, which Fraser argues can help us envision the resistance we need to end the feeding frenzy. What we need, she argues, is a wide-ranging socialist movement that can recognize the rapaciousness of capital—and starve it to death.
Automation and the Future of Work
by Aaron BenanavA consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their effect on workplaces and the labor marketSilicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists and social critics have united in arguing that we are living on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But does the much-discussed &“rise of the robots&” really explain the jobs crisis that awaits us on the other side of the coronavirus? In Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav uncovers the structural economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity, if technological innovation alone can&’t deliver it? In response to calls for a universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a counter-proposal.
Futures of Socialism: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era
by Grace BlakeleyHow should the left respond to electoral defeat, the leadership of Keir Starmer and a global crisis?British politics is in an extraordinary place. Grace Blakeley introduces an indispensable collection of analysis and comment. In Futures of Socialism, Sam Gindin and James Meadway reassess socialist strategy after the coronavirus; Dalia Gebrial and Siân Errington debate austerity and precarity; Joshua Virasami and Simukai Chigudu explore anti-racism and the legacy of Empire; and Leo Panitch and Momentum co-founder James Schneider probe the limits of parliamentary socialism. Chris Saltmarsh assesses the prospects for an eco-socialist Green New Deal and Cat Hobbs argues for the ongoing centrality of public ownership to socialist policy. Futures of Socialism takes an in-depth look at the reasons for Labour&’s 2019 election defeat, with Unite&’s Andrew Murray on Labour&’s Brexit position, Tom Mills on the British media, Gargi Bhattacharyya and Jeremy Gilbert on better ways to build a political project, and Keir Milburn on generation left. The anthology also compares the fortunes of the British left with socialist movements overseas, in despatches from Europe and America. Blakeley draws on the talents of all sections of the post-Corbyn left to survey the prospects of &“a movement that has dominated the horizons of our lives.&”
The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left
by Stuart HallStuart Hall's writings on the political impact of Margaret Thatcher have established him as the most prescient and insightful analyst of contemporary ConservatismCollected here for the first time with a new introduction, these essays show how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. Hall's critical approach is elaborated here in essays on the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of 'regressive modernization'.The Hard Road to Renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.
The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of Revolution
by Mitchell Dean Daniel ZamoraFoucault&’s personal and political experimentation, its ambiguous legacy, and the rise of neoliberal politicsPart intellectual history, part critical theory, The Last Man Takes LSD challenges the way we think about both Michel Foucault and modern progressive politics. One fateful day in May 1975, Foucault dropped acid in the southern California desert. In letters reproduced here, he described it as among the most important events of his life, one which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. That trip helped redirect Foucault&’s thought and contributed to a tectonic shift in the intellectual life of the era. He came to reinterpret the social movements of May &’68 and reposition himself politically in France, embracing anti-totalitarian currents and becoming a critic of the welfare state.Mitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora examine the full historical context of the turn in Foucault&’s thought, which included studies of the Iranian revolution and French socialist politics, through which he would come to appreciate the possibilities of autonomy offered by a new force on the French political scene that was neither of the left nor the right: neoliberalism.
Morbid Symptoms: An Anatomy of a World in Crisis
by Donald SassoonA health check on our corrupt and broken political system by one of our finest historiansThe deadly coronavirus spread across societies already riddled with political ills: rampant xenophobia and corruption, privatisation run amok, Brexiteer vainglory of 'a global Britain', a Euroland dominated by self-proclaimed nasty parties, and in America, the unspeakable Trump. As the acclaimed historian Donald Sassoon observes in this blistering polemic, there were morbid symptoms galore.Sassoon paints an unforgettable picture of our galloping descent into political barbarism, mixing blunt exposé and classical references with an astonishing array of data. Why does the United States proportionately have more civilians owning guns than Yemen, where there is a war on? Why did the UK enter the pandemic with fewer doctors than any EU country except Poland and Romania?In Morbid Symptoms he refuses to abandon what Antonio Gramsci termed the optimism of the will, instead recalling a line from Machiavelli's Istorie fiorentine: 'do not impute past disorders to the nature of the men, but to the times, which, being changed, give reasonable ground to hope that, with better government, our city will have better fortune in the future'.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
by Friedrich EngelsThe most influential theory of the origins of women's oppression in the modern era, in a beautiful new editionIn this provocative and now-classic work, Frederick Engels explores the interrelated development of the family and the state from ancient society to the Victorian era. Drawing on new anthropological theories of his time, Engels argued that matriarchal communal societies had been overthrown by class society and its emphasis on private, not communal, property and monogamous, rather than polygamous, sexual organization. This historical development, Engels argued, constituted "the world-historic defeat of the female sex."A masterclass in the application of materialist thought to history and anthropology, and touching on love, monogamy, property, and the development of the human, this landmark work is still foundational in Marxist and socialist feminist theory.