10 best-selling philosophy books like How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott

Cover of How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott

How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

By: Paul Cockshott

4.38

Format: 440 pages, Hardcover

A sweeping history of the full range of human labor. Few authors are able to write cogently in b…

"Human society has to work to survive. Our food, clothing, and shelter are won by work and, as every parent knows, the next generation is raised by work. Society is, before all else, a collective effort to ensure its own physical continuity."

-Paul Cockshott, How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

"Human society has to work to survive. Our food, clothing, and shelter are won by work and, as every parent knows, the next generation is raised by work. Society is, before all else, a collective effort to ensure its own physical continuity."

-Paul Cockshott, How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

If you liked the philosophy plot in How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott , here is a list of 10 books like this:

Cover of Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase

1. Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

By: Peter Frase

3.78

Format: 150 pages, Paperback

An exhilarating exploration into the utopias and dystopias that could develop from present society … read more

Similar categories in Peter Frase's Four Futures: Life After Capitalism book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
"the path that leads to utopia is not necessarily itself utopian"

-Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

"… nature doesn’t care about us; it neither has interests nor desires, it simply exists."

-Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

"But we can also say that even in a society without clear rulers, history will tend to empathize with the survivors; they are, after all, literally the only ones around to write it."

-Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

"Both [social science & science fiction] attempt to understand empirical facts and lived experience as something that is shaped by abstract - and not directly perceptible - structural forces."

-Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

Cover of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, Vincent Harding

2. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

By: Walter Rodney , Vincent Harding

4.42

Format: 312 pages, Paperback

The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring… read more

Similar categories in Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • world history
  • theory
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
"It was economics that Europe should invest in Africa and control the continent's raw materials and labour. It was racism which confirmed the decision that form of control should be direct colonial ru…"

-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

"On any basic figure of the Africans landed alive in the Americas, one would have to make several extensions- starting with a calculation to cover mortality in transshipment. The Atlantic crossing, or…"

-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

"There was a period when the capitalist system increased the well-being of significant numbers of people as a by-product of seeking out profits for a few, but today the quests for profits comes into s…"

-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

"Governor Cameroon of Tanganyika in the 1920s was known as a "progressive" governor. But when he was attacked for trying to preserve the African personality in the educational system, he denied the ch…"

-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Cover of The Principles of Communism by Friedrich Engels

3. The Principles of Communism

By: Friedrich Engels

4.06

Format: 25 pages, ebook

In 1847 Engels wrote two draft programmes for the Communist League in the form of a catechism, one … read more

Similar categories in Friedrich Engels's The Principles of Communism book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
Cover of Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Joseph Stalin

4. Dialectical and Historical Materialism

By: Joseph Stalin

3.91

Format: 48 pages, Paperback

A succinct presentation of the philosophical foundations of Marxism. read more

Similar categories in Joseph Stalin's Dialectical and Historical Materialism book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
"If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluat…"

-Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism

"But having developed productive forces to a tremendous extent, capitalism has become enmeshed in contradictions which it is unable to solve. By producing larger and larger quantities of commodities, …"

-Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism

Cover of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Serge L. Levitsky

5. Das Kapital

By: Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Serge L. Levitsky

4.22

Format: None pages, Paperback

Das Kapital, Karl Marx's seminal work, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth centu… read more

Similar categories in Karl Marx's Das Kapital book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
Cover of Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, Michael Cunningham, Michael Henry Heim

6. Death in Venice

By: Thomas Mann , Michael Cunningham , Michael Henry Heim

3.74

Format: 142 pages, Paperback

The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann -- here in a new translation by Michael … read more

Similar categories in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

"Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought."

-Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

"Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph."

-Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

"Denn der Mensch liebt und ehrt den Menschen , solange er ihn nicht zu beurteilen vermag, und die Sehnsucht ist ein Erzeunis mangelhafter Erkenntnis."

-Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

"Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden."

-Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

Cover of Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

7. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

By: Michael Parenti

4.41

Format: 166 pages, Paperback

Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, rev… read more

Similar categories in Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
"Ecology's implications for capitalism are too horrendous for the capitalist to contemplate."

-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

"Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency-which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution."

-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

"A joke circulating in Russia in 1992 went like this: Q. What did capitalism accomplish in one year that communism could not do in seventy years? A. Make communism look good."

-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

"...the [pure socialist] critics [of communist countries] seem unable to apply their own leadership genius to producing a successful revolutionary movement in their own country."

-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Cover of A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

8. A People's History of the United States

By: Howard Zinn

3.00

Format: None pages,

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the Unit… read more

Similar categories in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • politics
  • history
  • nonfiction

9. Wage-Labour and Capital/Value, Price and Profit

By: Karl Marx

3.97

Format: None pages,

read more

Similar categories in Karl Marx's Wage-Labour and Capital/Value, Price and Profit book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

10. Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany

By: Shaun Whiteside , Norman Ohler

4.00

Format: None pages, Hardcover

In this highly original book, a bestseller in Germany, Norman Ohler investigates the murky, chaotic… read more

Similar categories in Shaun Whiteside's Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

11. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

By: Mark Fisher

4.00

Format: 176 pages, Paperback

read more

Similar categories in Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

12. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

By: Naomi Klein

4.52

Format: None pages, Hardcover

In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedm… read more

Similar categories in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

13. Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat

By: J. Sakai

4.12

Format: 288 pages, Paperback

read more

Similar categories in J. Sakai's Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

14. Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism's Final Crisis

By: None

3.00

Format: 112 pages, Hardcover

Winner of the first Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award for an original monograph concerned… read more

Similar categories in None's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism's Final Crisis book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

15. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View

By: Ellen Meiksins Wood

3.44

Format: 406 pages, Paperback

Capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor is it simply an extensi… read more

Similar categories in Ellen Meiksins Wood's The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

Cover of Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee

16. Life & Times of Michael K

By: J.M. Coetzee

3.86

Format: 192 pages, Paperback

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. … read more

Similar categories in J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

"From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth ."

-J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

"There is no home left for universal souls, except perhaps in Antarctica or on the high seas."

-J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

"No papers, no money; no family, no friends, no sense of who you are. The obscurest of the obscure, so obscure as to be a prodigy."

-J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

"You have never asked for anything, yet you have become an albatross around my neck. Your bony arms are knotted behind my head, I walk bowed under the weight of you."

-J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

Cover of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels

17. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

By: Friedrich Engels

4.24

Format: 86 pages, Paperback

Modern socialism is not a doctrine, Engels explains, but a working-class movement growing out of th… read more

Similar categories in Friedrich Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
"State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by th…"

-Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

"Las fuerzas activas de la sociedad obran, mientras no las conocemos y contamos con ellas, exactamente lo mismo que las fuerzas de la naturaleza: de un modo ciego, violento, destructor. Pero, una vez …"

-Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Cover of Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel

18. Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

By: Jason Hickel

4.51

Format: 336 pages, Paperback

The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we mu… read more

Similar categories in Jason Hickel's Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
"Individuality is an illusion. Life on this planet is an interwoven mesh of relational becoming."

-Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

"We will find ourselves plunging into ecological collapse well before we run into the limits to growth."

-Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

"It is politically easier to rev up GDP and hope some of it trickles down to the poor than it is to distribute existing income more fairly."

-Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

"Atmospheric carbon concentration should not breach 350ppm if the climate is to remain stable (we crossed that boundary in 1990, and hit 415ppm in 2020)."

-Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

19. Soviet Democracy

By: Pat Sloan

4.35

Format: 288 pages, Paperback

"A very great deal is being Said and written nowadays about democracy and dictatorship. We repeated… read more

Similar categories in Pat Sloan's Soviet Democracy book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Bhaskar Sunkara

20. The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

By: Bhaskar Sunkara

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A "razor-sharp" introduction to this political and economic ideology makes a galvanizing argument f… read more

Similar categories in Bhaskar Sunkara's The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • economics
  • sociology
Cover of How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott

21. How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

By: Paul Cockshott

4.38

Format: 440 pages, Hardcover

A sweeping history of the full range of human labor. Few authors are able to write cogently in b… read more

Similar categories in Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day book and Paul Cockshott's How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • history
  • world history
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • labor
  • economics
  • sociology
  • anthropology
"Human society has to work to survive. Our food, clothing, and shelter are won by work and, as every parent knows, the next generation is raised by work. Society is, before all else, a collective effo…"

-Paul Cockshott, How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day

12 must-read history books like How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott

Transform Your Habits

Four Futures: Life After Capitalism

Peter Frase

3.78

Transform Your Habits

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Walter Rodney , Vincent Harding

4.42

Transform Your Habits

The Principles of Communism

Friedrich Engels

4.06

Transform Your Habits

Dialectical and Historical Materialism

Joseph Stalin

3.91

View all the books

15 Best history books like A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Transform Your Habits

1776

David McCullough

4.09

Transform Your Habits

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Dee Brown

4.25

Transform Your Habits

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

4.36

Transform Your Habits

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

Erik Larson

4.00

View all the books

Never miss a story from us, get weekly updates in your inbox.