Tuesday 21st May 7.00pm
Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St., Bristol, BS2 0EZ
with Neil Faulkner
We face the greatest crisis in the history of humanity. Economic depression, imperialist war, climate catastrophe, and grotesque social inequalities threaten to tear the world apart. What is to be done? The lesson of history is that human beings make their own history.
Launching his new book, A Marxist History of the World: from Neanderthals to Neoliberals, archaeologist and historian Neil Faulkner argues that history is open and contested. It is an active process of creation in which different futures are possible. It depends on what we do.
Powered by the interaction of technological change, wars between rulers, and class struggle from below, history is a constant struggle for control over society’s wealth. For 5,000 years, that wealth has served greed and war. Now, in the great crisis of the early 21st century, we must act to create a different future.
The meeting will include plenty of time for questions and discussion. All welcome. Join us.
Described by The Guardian as ‘enlightening and apocalyptic in equal measure’, Dr Neil Faulkner is a research fellow at Bristol University, a revolutionary socialist activist, and the author of numerous books, including Rome: Empire of the eagles (2008). He was a lead consultant and contributor to Sky Atlantic’s The British.
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Christopher Gould
I will cerainly buy your book and read it with deep interest.We look at the past and speculate on the future.Perhaps we want the future to be like now but only better but that is not how it will be.In a funny way I think we need to evolve to want and need different things to what we want now.I do not think the time will ever come when every one on earth will be able to own and drive a car.So cars are out;they just mean more wars over fossil fuels. But what will fill the gap in our lives and be condusive to world peace.?The same argument applies to meat;but what can be devised by science to be as appetising to take its place.Sex will be solely for pleasure and reproduction will be done by growing cells in labs.This might be the only rational future in which man can survive ,but does anybody want it.?
Perhaps the Book of Revelation is partly right.We need to leave the planet and leave behind about six million people-the same as were on Earth in 3000 B.C.But with all the power and potency of modern technology at their disposal and so able to live in a new Garden of Eden or blow themselves up in a recrudescence of rivalries.