Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism

This is an historical account of Europe, from the Ancient Greeks to modern absolutist monarchies. It considers the transition from classical antiquity to feudalism in Europe. Perry Anderson is the author of "A Zone of Engagement", "English Questions" and "On Tracks of Historical Materialism".

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The rise of the modern absolutist monarchies in Europe constitutes in many ways the birth of the modern historical epoch. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, the companion volume to Perry Anderson's highly acclaimed and influential Lineages of the Absolutist State, is a sustained exercise in historical sociology to root the development of absolutism in the diverse routes taken from the slave-based societies of Ancient Greece and Rome to fully-fledged feudalism. In the course of this study Anderson vindicates and refines the explanatory power of a Marxist conception of history, whilst casting a fascinating light on Greece, Rome, the Germanic invasion, nomadic society, and the different patterns of the evolution of feudalism in Northern, Mediterranean, Eastern and Western Europe.