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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Write short note: Historical materialism.

  • UPSC 1986
  • Sociological Thinkers

Historical materialism is Karl Marx's materialist conception of history, worked out with Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology (1846) and stated most compactly in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). Its premise: it is not consciousness that determines social being, but social being that determines consciousness. Society is explained…

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What the full answer covers

  • Core propositions
  • Stages of history
  • Significance for sociology
  • Criticisms
  • Conclusion

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