How might an objective observer conceive of what humans have accomplished as a species over its brief history? Benjamin argues that history can be judged as one giant catastrophe. Liberals suggest that this is to sombre an assessment and that human history can be read as a story of greater and greater progress in human rights, prosperity and the decrease of arbitrary and extra-judicial violence. But is there a third reading of history, one that neither interprets human history as a giant catastrophe or endless progress? Could we not say that human development has been a tragedy?
This book explores the idea of human development as a tragedy from the perspective of capitalist power. Although the argument of this book draws heavily on critical political economy, the analysis considers interdisciplinary literature in an effort to explore how major revolutions have transformed human social relations of power and created certain path dependencies that may ultimately lead to our downfall as a species. Intellectually sophisticated and readable, this book offers a provocative genealogy of capitalist power and the tragedy of human development.
- 200 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
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Index
accounting revolution, 15
Adidas AG, 139
Afghanistan, 113
Africa, 11, 32–33, 67–68, 83; East Africa, 31–32; “Out of Africa” Hypothesis, 31; West Africa, 67–68
Alexander the Great, 44
Alexius I Comnenus, 55
Alpern, Stanley B., 67
American Revolution, 63
Amsterdam Stock Exchange, 48
Anatolia, 38, 46
Andersen, Kip, 6
Appalachians, 63
Apple Inc., 126, 140
Arab-Israeli War (1973), 154
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, 1
Aristotle, 43–44
Arkhipov, Vasili Alexandrovich, 5
Association for Preserving Liberty and Property (APLP), 83
Athens, ancient, 40, 42
Australia, 127
Bakan, Joel, 143–44
Bank of England, 54, 68, 94–95, 102, 137
Bartlett, Al, 20
Battle of Hastings, 121
Benjamin, Walter, ix, 11–12, 20
Bernhardi, Friedrich von, 106
Bernstein, Peter L., 54
Bhagavad Gita, 108
Bichler, Shimshon, 25–26, 123–24, 138–39, 143
Black, Edwin, 101
Blackburn, Robin, 69
Black Death, 72
Bloomberg Billionaire Index, 8
Bodley, John H., 20
Boehm, Christopher, 27
Bono, 122
Brand, Ulrich, 7
Braudel, Fernand, 24
Brecht, Bertolt, 12
Brewer, John, 99
Breyer, Jim, 122
Britain, ix; absentee ownership and capitalization, 120–21, 123, 127; Bank of England, 54, 94–95, 137; banks, 155–56; coal, 96–97; Communist Party Historians Group, 21; English Civil War, 121; industrialization, 75, 83, 98–99; Marxist theory regarding, 79; military spending, 116; money, 94–96; Norman Conquest, 62; nuclear weapons, 5, 91, 107, 109; poor laws, 70...
Table of contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Mise-en-scène
- Act I The First Power Civilizations
- Act II Colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- Act III The Fossil Fuel Revolution
- Act IV Corporate Capitalism
- Act V Human Development
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
- About the Author
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Yes, you can access The Tragedy of Human Development by Tim Di Muzio in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Political Economy. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.