Universal history is an attempt to give an account of the entire history of mankind. Contrary to the modern philosophers who tried universal history in relation to a universal purpose, Deleuze and Guattari emphasizes a universal object in the center of their theory. According to the way of regulating the object, Flow, their universal history has three types of society: Savages, Barbarians, and Civilized Men. The main arguments of this paper could be summarized as follows. First, their conception of universal history is justified, emphasizing its two main characteristics: history of accidental encounters, and retrospective investigation into the result of the encounters. Second, the nature of each type of society is revealed in terms of the ‘source of production’ and the ‘way of regulating flows’: Earth and coding in Savages, Despot and overcoding in Barbarians, Money and decoding in Civilized Men. Third, the validity of their universal history is presented, in confrontation with social evolutionists. On the one hand, their universal history suggests an alternative point of view that explains both transition and coexistence between different types of society. On the other hand, it reveals the dynamics of power in primitive society ignored by social evolutionists, and criticizes their instrumentalist theory of the state by the new conception of the origin of state (Urstaat).

Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Philosophy of History, Universal History, Socius