![]() His father had enough experience of finance and banking to be sent as an employee to the Commercial Department of the Soviet embassy in Christiana (Oslo). Its author, Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff, was born on 12 January 1915 in Petrograd, the son of a bank employee. The Paths of History is one of the most intriguing and innovative fruits of this intellectual and spiritual milieu. When one couples this renewed freedom with the very distinctive personal experience of those who have lived through the Soviet experiment, the results are sometimes remarkable. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the Marxist monopoly on intellectual life freed Russian social scientists and historians to deploy a broader range of theoretical approaches to the history of their own country and the world. Sixth Phase (the Stable Absolutist Post-Medieval Phase) Diakonoff First published in English as The Paths of History by Cambridge University Press 1999 Ot drevneishego chelovek do nashikh dnei by Vostochnaia Uteratwa 1994 and © Igor M. ![]() Diakonoff 2004 First published in printed format 1999 ISBN 7-1 eBook (Adobe Reader) ISBN 8-1 hardback ISBN 8-8 paperback Originally published in Russian as Puti Istorii. He is the author of many scholarly publications including the three-volume History of the Ancient World (1989), of which he was principal editor, and Archaic Myths of Orient and Occident (1993). d i a k o n o f f is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, University of St Petersburg. As the book moves through the various chronological stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race which promises to be the most important work of intellectual world history since Toynbee. Finally the book concludes with a prognosis for the future of humanity, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusion about what the future holds. Professor Diakonoff also denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how ‘each progress is simultaneously a regress’. Professor Diakonoff’s focus is not limited solely to the economic and socio-economic aspects of our development, rather he examines in detail the ethnic, cultural, religious and military-technological factors which have been brought to bear over the centuries. In addition, and in contrast to Marx, Professor Diakonoff denies that our transition from one stage to the next is marked by social conflict and revolution and demonstrates that these transitions are sometimes achieved peacefully and gracefully. Professor Diakonoff, however, has expanded Marx’s five stages of development to eight. This is a broad and ambitious study which takes as its point of departure Marx’s theory of social evolution. Tracing an outline of historical processes from palaeolithic times to the present day, The Paths of History provides a unique, concise and readable overview of the entire history of humanity and the laws governing it.
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