The precis was written between 1880-81 and contained Marx’s numerous remarks on Morgan as well as passages from other sources. It focuses on early human history, following the disintegration of the primitive community and the emergence of a class society based on private property. Engels looks into the origin and essence of the state, and concludes it is bound to wither away leaving a classless society.
This book argues that the first domestic institution in human history was not the family but the matrilineal clan.Traditionally, the Iroquois had lived in communal longhouses based on matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence, an arrangement giving women much solidarity and power. Throughout most of the twentieth century, following the Russian Revolution, these ideas became associated with ‘Bolshevism’ and deemed so inflammatory that, outside the Soviet Union, they were effectively suppressed and ultimately considered to be disproved. Modern evolutionary anthropology is currently reassessing that position. Any commentators (including marxists) still accept the 20th-century view that Engels was wrong on all this, but this consensus may be changing.
The book begins with an extensive discussion of Ancient Society which describes the major stages of human development as commonly understood in Engels' time. In contrast to other contemporary essays on the subject, Engels emphasizes the importance not of primitive psychological development but rather of social relations of power and control over material resources, sometimes related to the development of new technologies. Morgan, whose account of prehistory Engels largely accepts as given, focuses primarily on the first two stages of Savagery and Barbarism but only ventures as far as the transition into Civilization. Engels summarizes these stages as follows:
This book argues that the first domestic institution in human history was not the family but the matrilineal clan.Traditionally, the Iroquois had lived in communal longhouses based on matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence, an arrangement giving women much solidarity and power. Throughout most of the twentieth century, following the Russian Revolution, these ideas became associated with ‘Bolshevism’ and deemed so inflammatory that, outside the Soviet Union, they were effectively suppressed and ultimately considered to be disproved. Modern evolutionary anthropology is currently reassessing that position. Any commentators (including marxists) still accept the 20th-century view that Engels was wrong on all this, but this consensus may be changing.
The book begins with an extensive discussion of Ancient Society which describes the major stages of human development as commonly understood in Engels' time. In contrast to other contemporary essays on the subject, Engels emphasizes the importance not of primitive psychological development but rather of social relations of power and control over material resources, sometimes related to the development of new technologies. Morgan, whose account of prehistory Engels largely accepts as given, focuses primarily on the first two stages of Savagery and Barbarism but only ventures as far as the transition into Civilization. Engels summarizes these stages as follows: