I mention decline a lot on here, in passing, as in decline of the western empire. But I don’t feel I have a good grasp of the history of empires more generally (well, things that have gotten that label in history, like the roman empire).
And I don’t want to end up in bougie land trying to learn more about it, cause I figure they’re going to romanticize empires more so.
I know Michael Parenti wrote The Assassination Of Julius Caesar: A People’s History Of Ancient Rome. I haven’t read it, so I can’t tell you if it is good.
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I’m almost finished and it’s a truly great book. Goes to show you that even when you try and monopolize political power from within the system, within the ruling class, to force reform and wealth redistribution to save itself, they’ll just literally stab in you the back to preserve their privilege.
I can’t speak for everywhere, but from my experience, it isn’t hard to find in US public libraries, so that’s a plus
Holy shit I didn’t know that existed. What a legend
The collapse of Antiquity by Michael Hudson for information about the Roman empire. He also talks about Greece. The book is divided in two, ancient Greece/Rome, and is mainly centered on debt, how it came to be and those who fought against it.
Michael Hudson is a bourgeois economist who happens to know which way the wind is blowing. His analysis is not Marxist, and his conclusions, while anti-finance capital, are not communist. He is the modern day Proudhon.
Just as a pre-warning on his books and the bent of his analysis of debt. This doesn’t mean there is no value to be gleaned from his works, though.
I only read his collapse of antiquity, whose insight is similar to what Parenti said about Rome during the times of Julius Caesar and the civil war between the popularis and optimates. I know nothing else about Hudson other than he is transphobic pos.
I know nothing else about Hudson other than he is transphobic pos.
Got a source for this? Not doubting you, just haven’t heard this criticism of him before.
I haven’t heard anything transphobic from him directly. But I’ve seen people from hexbear accuse him of that, and I just took it for granted that it was true. The book mentioned earlier is the only written thing I’ve read from Hudson. I saw him for the first time on Ben Norton’s YT channel weeks ago. So the book and this interview are my only 2 interactions with him and his works/beliefs.
While there are things to criticize Hudson for, his advocacy of modern monetary theory for example, labelling him a “bourgeois economist” seems dishonest. He’s a self described “Marxist economist” and similar to his colleague Richard Wolff, he unfortunately has some western Marxist brainworms, likely made worse by existing within trotskyist circles in his formative years. He most importantly takes an anti-imperialist stance and this is reflected throughout his work.
There’s also Gerald Horne, who has many books that focus on the rise of the USA as an empire. But also ends up talking a lot about the British empire too.
You should probably look at eric hobsbawm books as well.
Justin Podur’s Civilizations podcast is really good but it is focused on modern history starting at the end of 1400s and they are only covering the inter war period. So give it another year or so and they’ll have covered the fall of the british empire.
Not commie or marxist but The Fall of Civilisations podcast is pretty good.
There are some good works on ProleWiki you could find.
Absolutely, the smallest, most niche topic you can think of, there may just be a good bit of info on it on ProleWiki.
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