"Historical Materialism and Social Evolution brings together a range of essays that reassess and reaffirm the evolutionary component of Marx's theory of historical materialism. The authors of this collection insist that a viable Marxist theory of history must both include an evolutionary component and be compatible with and grow out of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection without collapsing historical materialism into a version of social Darwinism. However, while there is agreement that this must be done there is no general consensus among the authors collected here on how it should be done. Rather, the authors engage in an important debate within this field; once again reaffirming the vitality of contemporary Marxist theory as both a progressive research programme and as a guide to action."--BOOK JACKET.