Historical materialism

Historical materialism (or what Marx himself called "the materialist conception of history" - materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung) is a social theory and an approach to the study of history and sociology, normally considered as the intellectual basis of Marxism.

Commentaries on different aspects of historical and dialectical materialism

• Franz Mehring, On Historical Materialism (classic statement by a contemporary and friend of Marx & Engels)http://www.marxists.org/archive/mehring/1893/histmat/index.htm
• Z.A. Jordan, The evolution of Dialectical Materialism (good survey)

http://marxmyths.org/jordan/article.htm

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism: a Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union. (alternative survey)
• Loren R. Graham, Science Philosophy and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union. (sympathetically-critical of dialectical materialism)
• George Novack, Understanding History: Marxist Essays (Trotskyist interpretations of problems of history)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/index.htm

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• H. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch. (critical account which focusses on incoherencies in the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin)
• Gerald Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. (influential analytical Marxist interpretation)
• Helmut Fleischer, Marxism and History. (good reply to false interpretations of Marx's view of history)
• E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory. (polemic which ridicules theorists of history who do not actually study history)
• Karl Marx (Arguments of the Philiosophers series), Routledge 2004 by Allen W Wood - delves into misinterpretations of Marx including the substitution of "Historical materialism" by Lenin/Engels's concept of Dialectical Materialism
• William H. Shaw, Marx's theory of history (short survey)
• Johan Witt-Hansen, Historical Materialism: The Method, The Theories. (sees historical materialism as a methodology, and Das Kapital as an application of the method)
• Gordon V. Childe, Man Makes Himself (free interpretation of Marx's idea)
• Leszek Nowak, Property and Power. Towards a non-Marxian Historical Materialism. (attempt to develop a post-Stalinist interpretation of Marx's project)
• Joseph Stalin, Historical and Dialectical Materialism. (classic statement of Marxist-Leninist doctrine)

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Mao Tse Tung, Four Essays on Philosophy. (standard Maoist reading of Marx's materialism)

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/index.htm

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Goran Therborn, Science, Class and Society (critical survey of the relationship between sociology and historical materialism)
• Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Marxism. (emphasizes understanding the roots of class society and the state)
• Ernest Mandel, The Place of Marxism in History (modelled on Lenin's "Three components of Marxism" but with an interesting section on the reception and diffusion of Marxism in the world)
• Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 volumes). (captures the full subtlety of Marx's thought, but at length)
• Franz Jakubowski, Ideology and superstructure. (attempts to provide an alternative to schematic interpretations of historical materialism)
• Wal Suchting, Marx: An Introduction. (good short introduction)
• Chris Harman, A People's History of the World (Marxist view of history according to a leader of the International Socialist Tendency)
• Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society. (argues historical materialism must be revised to include communicative action)