Offering insight and equal consideration into the societies of the "civilized" and "uncivilized" world, "Europe and the People Without History" deftly explores the historical trajectory of so-called modern globalization. In this foundational text about the development of the global political economy, Eric R. Wolf challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and people were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism. Ironically referred to as "the People Without History" by Wolf, these societies before active colonization possessed perpetually changing, reactionary cultures and were indeed just as intertwined into the processes of the pre-Columbian global economic system as their European counterparts. Utilizing Marxian concepts and a vivid consideration for the importance of history, Wolf judiciously traces the effects and conditions in Europe and the rest of the "known" world, beginning in 1400 AD, that allowed capitalism to emerge as the dominant ideology of the modern era.

埃裏剋·R.沃爾夫（1923—1999年），齣生於奧地利維也納，1940年赴美，曾參與第二次世界大戰；戰爭結束後於1951年獲得美國哥倫比亞大學人類學博士學位，曾先後任教於伊利諾伊大學、耶魯大學、芝加哥大學等著名學府。埃裏剋·R.沃爾夫是當代著名的人類學傢，著作頗豐，知名作品有《農民社會》（Peasants）、《二十世紀的農民戰爭》（Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century）等。本書被認為是他的代錶作。

譯者賈士蘅，颱灣大學曆史係學士、考古人類學碩士，曾擔任美國丹佛美術博物館研究員，翻譯作品有《英國史》《英國社會人類學》《英國社會史》《曆史的再思考》《帝國的年代》《英國工人階級的形成》等書。