Human beings, we have been told, have always been greedy, competitive and aggressive, and that explains horrors like war, exploitation, slavery and oppression of women. I argue very differently. 'Human nature' as we know it today is a product of our history, not its cause.
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Harman begins where all standard 'histories of the world' begin: the trees. From there, we survived in bands as hunter-gatherers (which Harman displays as the reason for our survival and directly contradicts the theory of 'human nature' discussed above). From there he distinguishes the importance of people's adopting agriculture, but he is interested in the first people to accumulation harvest's above subsistence means, which created the first classes. Those who worked to supply the surplus food and those who guarded the food. From this beginning, the world as we know it takes shape.
A history of the world does not require much summary. From the rise of ancient civilizations (Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, etc.) to the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR - Harman includes it and provides in class struggle.
