Offering insight and equal consideration into the societies of the "civilized" and "uncivilized" world, Europe and the People Without History deftly explores the historical trajectory of so-called modern globalization. In this foundational text about the development of the global political economy, Eric R. Wolf challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and peoples were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism. Ironically referred to as "the People Without History" by Wolf, these societies before active colonization possessed perpetually changing, reactionary cultures and were indeed just as intertwined into the processes of the pre-Columbian global economic system as their European counterparts. Utilizing Marxian concepts and a vivid consideration for the importance of history, Wolf judiciously traces the effects and conditions in Europe and the rest of the "known" world, beginning in 1400 AD, that allowed capitalism to emerge as the dominant ideology of the modern era.

"Eric Wolf has literally set the terms for anthropological thinking about peasantries, culture and power, complex societies, and interactions between noncapitalist societies and capitalism. Every item in this excellent collection has stimulated and influenced both my own thought and that of many others in our field, as well as beyond it. "—Katherine Verdery, University of Michigan "This powerful body of work begins ('Anthropology') and ends ('Concepts') in a rather speculative vein, taking us into the ideas of others and then back to Wolf. In these two sections we get a picture of the development of currents in anthropology (and the social sciences more broadly) from the early fifties to the present and the way in which Wolf's intellectual and political development was threaded through those debates and controversies. In the middle two sections ('Connections' and 'Peasants') we get the pathbreaking pieces that made Wolf the major figure he is. "—Gavin Smith, University of Toronto "There is a large audience, to be found in anthropology and in related fields like history, cultural studies, gender studies, etc., who will receive the writings of Eric Wolf with appreciation. . . . His work is fully in the comparative anthropological tradition . . . [and] demonstrates the power of comparative historical analysis. "—Abraham Rosman, Barnard College, Columbia University