In the third part of his series on the Marxist view of history, Alan Woods takes a closer look at the earliest forms of class society, discussing the rise and fall of slavery, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.

In the second part of his introduction to the Marxist – that is, materialist – view of history, Alan Woods discusses the early stages of humanity and society, and discusses how class society and private property emerged on the basis of the development of the productive forces.

We publish here the first part in a serialisation of a new work by Alan Woods, which explains the Marxist method of analysing history. The ultimate cause of all social change is to be found, not in the human brain, but in changes in the mode of production.