Free A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium by Chris Harman Page B

stagnation that characterises the later Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom on the one hand and the dynamism of the early centuries of the New Kingdom on the other. This was a period of foreign conquests by the pharaohs into Palestine and Syria and south into Africa. The conquests brought a flow of new raw materials and luxury goods. At the same time the domestic surplus was now large enough to provide for the most elaborate tombs and luxurious palaces, not only for the pharaohs but also for chief priests and regional officials. Underlying this seems to have been a spurt in the development of production. Bronze—with its harder, less easily blunted cutting edge—increasingly replaced copper. Horse-drawn wheeled vehicles were mainly used in warfare, but also speeded up internal communications. For the peasant, irrigation became easier with the introduction of the shaduf , a pole and bucket lever that could raise water a metre out of a ditch or stream. 97
    Foreign invasion had shaken up the Egyptian social structure just enough to allow improved means of making a livelihood to break through after close on 1,000 years of near-stagnation. It suggests that in certain circumstances, even when an emerging social class based on new relations of production is not strong, external force can overcome, at least temporarily, the suffocation of social life by an old superstructure.

Part two
The ancient world

Chronology
    1000 to 500 BC
    Spread of iron making, weapons and tools across Asia, Europe, and west and central Africa. Phonetically based scripts in Middle East, Indian subcontinent and Mediterranean area.
    Clearing and cultivation of Ganges valley in India, new civilisation, rise of four caste system, Vedic religion.
    Phoenician, Greek and Italian city states. Unification of Middle East into rival empires based on Mesopotamia or Nile. Emergence of a small number of ‘warring states’ in China.
     
    600 to 300 BC
    Flowering of ‘classical’ civilisations. Confucius and Mencius in China. The Buddha in India. Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus in Greece. Class struggles in Greece.
    Conquest of Middle East by Macedonian armies of Alexander and of most of Indian subcontinent by Mauryan Empire of Ashoka.
    Struggles between Plebeians and Patricians in Rome. City conquers most of Italy.
     
    300 to 1 BC
    Disintegration of Mauryan Empire in India, but continued growth of trade and handicraft industry. Hindu Brahmans turn against cow slaughter.
    First Ch’in emperor unifies north China. Massive growth of iron working, handicraft industries and trade. Building of Great Wall and of canal and road systems. Peasant revolt brings Han Dynasty to power.
    Rome conquers whole Mediterranean region and Europe south of Rhine. Spread of slavery and impoverishment of peasantry in Italy. Peasants support Gracchus brothers, murdered in 133 and 121. Slave revolts in Sicily (130s) and in Italy under Spartacus (70s). Civil wars. Julius Caesar takes power 45. Augustus becomes emperor 27.
     
    AD 1 to 200
    Peak of Roman Empire. Crushes revolt in Palestine AD 70. Paul of Tarsus splits new sect of ‘Christians’ away from Judaism.
    Discovery of steel making in China. Extension of Han Empire into Korea, central Asia, south China, Indochina. Confucianism state ideology.
    Spread of peasant agriculture and Hinduism into south India and then to Malay peninsular and Cambodia. Indian merchants finance great Buddhist monasteries, carry religion to Tibet and Ceylon.
     
    AD 200 to 500
    Chinese Han Empire disintegrates. Collapse of urban economy, fragmentation of countryside into aristocratic estates, loss of interest in ‘classic’ literature. Buddhism spreads among certain groups.
    Gupta Empire unites much of in India in 5th century, flowering of art and science.
    Growing crises in Roman Empire. Technological and economic stagnation. Trade declines. Slavery gives way to taxes and rents from peasants bound to land. Peasant revolts in France and Spain. Increased