Labour Monthly, June 1943

What Happened in History

What Happened in History by Gordon Childe (Pelican Books, 9d.).

Source: Labour Monthly, June 1943, p. 192, book review by B. Farrington;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.


Gordon Childe has a talent for titles. His new title is as good as Man Makes Himself, and the book, too, is as good, if not better. Its period is from “the beginning” to about 300 A.D., its theme the development of human society, its method materialistic. Human society is treated as a continuation of natural history. Man’s spiritual heritage is a social creation. The origin of speech, the invention of writing (of which a new and brilliant account is given) the development of Greek science and of Christian theology are all alike treated as examples of social evolution fully explicable within the limits of the natural. To quote a characteristic example of his style and matter: “Evidently societies of men ‘cannot live by bread alone.’ But if ‘every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ does not directly or indirectly promote the growth, the biological and economic prosperity of the society, that sanctifies them, that society and its god with it will vanish ultimately. It is this natural selection that guarantees that in the long run the ideals of a society are ‘just translations and inversions in men’s minds of the material.'”

But if the merit of this book lies in its provision of fresh materialist interpretations of the development of society during the long period of which it treats; it would be a mistake to regard it as fully Marxist. An enthusiastic reviewer of the earlier Man Makes Himself described it as the book which Marx and Engels would have written if they had known the results of modern archaeological research. This is too high a compliment. Childe supplies factual knowledge, and with it interpretations of detail, unknown to Marx and Engels. In theory, he does not approximate to them. To illustrate this comparative weakness from the quotation already given from the present book, if it is only in the long run that the ideals of society are translations and inversions in men’s minds of the material, what are they in the short run? Of all its readers Marxists will give the fullest welcome to this book, but they will not need the author’s occasional disclaimers to remind them that it is not fully Marxist.

Since this book, it may be hoped and expected, will be printed again and again, we venture to ask the author to see whether (p.192) he has not ascribed the opinions of Anaximenes to Anaximander, and whether the Hippocrates mentioned on p.198 did not come from Cos, not Chios. Possibly also the evidence adduced in Carcopino’s Daily Life in Ancient Rome might modify his enthusiasm for the amenities of urban life under the Roman empire. But these are only trifles. The book is rich in ideas, rich in facts, vigorous in style, and admirably readable – a new and splendid example of popularisation by the leading British archaeologist.

B. FARRINGTON.