Merchant, Soldier, Sage by David Priestland
A bold new interpretation of modern history as a struggle between three economic groups We are now living in an age of merchants, but it was not always so. The history of civilization, in large part, is a story of a battle between agrarian aristocracy, the military, and a class of learned experts, or priests. Yet in seventeenth-century England and in the Netherlands, another group entered the m l e for power: the merchants. For the last four decades, the merchant's power has been unfettered. In Merchant, Soldier, Sage, acclaimed Oxford scholar David Priestland proposes a radical new approach to understanding today's balance of power, and analyzes the societal and economic historical conditions required for one of these three value systems to dominate. Priestland asserts that, in the wake of the Great Recession, the weakened and discredited merchant still clings to power--but the world is again in the midst of a period of upheaval.
David Priestland is the author of the widely-praised and internationally acclaimed The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World. While researching The Red Flag it became clear that it was neither Marx's 'classes', nor Huntingdon's clashing civilizations, nor even Fukuyama's competing ideologies that drove historical change, but 'caste struggle'. Merchant, Soldier, Sage is the result. He teaches history at Oxford University and is a Fellow of St. Edmund Hall.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781594203107 |
| ISBN 10 | 1594203105 |
| Title | Merchant, Soldier, Sage |
| Author | David Priestland |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2013-03-21 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |