An introduction to the meaning of historical materialism in the study of human development and its interactions with the earth’s habitat. It provides five interacting analytical dimensions. The first provides a geological time scale in the evolution of the human species. A second defines the materiality of human life segregated in the existence of sovereign territorial nation-states, defining the nature and contradictions of nationalism and capitalism. A third paradigm in the evolution of a global geopolitical economy defines the materiality of the nation-state system, constituting the existing world order. It examines the implications of the electronic revolution on the materiality and geopolitics of the global political economy. The fourth paradigm defines the impact of the capitalist mode of production and consumption on the earth’s environment and biosphere, threatening human existence on earth and the likelihood of another world war and the use of nuclear weapons. The last paradigm addresses the issue of the end of capitalism as a mode of production, potentially mobilising nation-states towards socialism.