Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. Social classes and the relationship between them, plus the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect economic activity.
Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded by thousands of Marxist thinkers. It now has many variants.
Read more about Historical Materialism: Key Ideas, Key Implications in The Study and Understanding of History, Marx's Materialism, Historical Materialism and The Future, Marxist Beliefs About History, Alienation and Freedom, The History of Historical Materialism, Warnings Against Misuse, Historical Materialism in Marxist Thought, Recent Versions of Historical Materialism, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or materialism:
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)