Origins of Materialism

The rise of a scientific world outlook in ancient Greece, and the development of agriculture, manufacturing, and trade that prepared its way.

“His claim is that materialism is not a matter of theory but of fact proved by practice.… the book is an honest attempt to retrace the earliest developments of the materialist world outlook. Simple and clearly written.” —Choice

George Novak (1905–1992) joined the communist movement in the United States in 1933 and remained a member and leader of the Socialist Workers Party until his death.

As national secretary of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, Novack helped organize the 1937 International Commission of Inquiry that investigated the charges fabricated by Stalin’s Moscow trials. In the 1940s Novack was national secretary of the Civil Rights Defense Committee, which gathered support for leaders of the SWP and the Midwest Teamsters’ strikes and organizing drive who were framed up and jailed under the witch-hunting Smith Act. He played a prominent role in numerous other civil liberties and civil rights battles over subsequent decades, including the landmark lawsuit against FBI spying and disruption won by the Socialist Workers Party in 1986. He was also active in defense of the Cuban Revolution and against the war in Vietnam.

His works include:
An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism
Genocide against the Indians
The Origins of Materialism
Existentialism versus Marxism
Empiricism and Its Evolution
The Marxist Theory of Alienation; Democracy and Revolution
Understanding History
Humanism and Socialism
Pragmatism versus Marxism
America’s Revolutionary Heritage
Polemics in Marxist Philosophy.