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I mention decline a lot on here, in passing, as in decline of the western empire. But I don't feel I have a good grasp of the history of empires more generally (well, things that have gotten that label in history, like the roman empire).

And I don't want to end up in bougie land trying to learn more about it, cause I figure they're going to romanticize empires more so.

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[-] ViolentPacifist@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 week ago

The collapse of Antiquity by Michael Hudson for information about the Roman empire. He also talks about Greece. The book is divided in two, ancient Greece/Rome, and is mainly centered on debt, how it came to be and those who fought against it.

[-] zedcell@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 week ago

Michael Hudson is a bourgeois economist who happens to know which way the wind is blowing. His analysis is not Marxist, and his conclusions, while anti-finance capital, are not communist. He is the modern day Proudhon.

Just as a pre-warning on his books and the bent of his analysis of debt. This doesn't mean there is no value to be gleaned from his works, though.

[-] ViolentPacifist@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 week ago

I only read his collapse of antiquity, whose insight is similar to what Parenti said about Rome during the times of Julius Caesar and the civil war between the popularis and optimates. I know nothing else about Hudson other than he is transphobic pos.

[-] o_d@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 week ago

I know nothing else about Hudson other than he is transphobic pos.

Got a source for this? Not doubting you, just haven't heard this criticism of him before.

[-] ViolentPacifist@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I haven't heard anything transphobic from him directly. But I've seen people from hexbear accuse him of that, and I just took it for granted that it was true. The book mentioned earlier is the only written thing I've read from Hudson. I saw him for the first time on Ben Norton's YT channel weeks ago. So the book and this interview are my only 2 interactions with him and his works/beliefs.

[-] o_d@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 week ago

While there are things to criticize Hudson for, his advocacy of modern monetary theory for example, labelling him a "bourgeois economist" seems dishonest. He's a self described "Marxist economist" and similar to his colleague Richard Wolff, he unfortunately has some western Marxist brainworms, likely made worse by existing within trotskyist circles in his formative years. He most importantly takes an anti-imperialist stance and this is reflected throughout his work.

[-] ViolentPacifist@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There's also Gerald Horne, who has many books that focus on the rise of the USA as an empire. But also ends up talking a lot about the British empire too.

You should probably look at eric hobsbawm books as well.

this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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