Man Makes Himself is the classic introduction to the history of early man. Starting over 340,000 years ago, when man's ability to make a fire and fashion stone tools helped him to survive among the wild beasts, it traces his development as a food producer, the emergence of cities and states, the rise of foreign trade and the urban revolution. V. Gordon Childe was a remarkable man who is considered the father of modern archaeology who specialised in the study of European prehistory. A vocal socialist, Childe accepted the socio-economic theory of Marxism and was an early, though unorthodox, proponent of Marxist archaeology. Childe was the author of several well-known books on the subject of archaeology and prehistory, most notably Man Makes Himself and What Happened in History.