Ships from: Phoenix, MD
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from: acton, MA
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from: Chatham, NJ
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from: Richmond, TX
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Marx's theory of history is often regarded as the most enduring and fruitful aspect of his intellectual legacy. His "historical materialism" has been the inspiration for some of the best historical writing in the works of scholars such as Eric Hobsbawm, E.P.Thompson, Rodney Hilton and Robert Brenner. S.H. Rigby establishes Marx's claims about social structure and historical change, discusses their use in his own and his followers' writings, and assesses the validity of his theories. He argues that Marx's social theories were profoundly contradictory and that Marxism has proved most useful when it is seen as a source of questions, concepts and hypotheses rather than as a philosophy of historical development.
| Preface to the first edition | ||
| Preface to the second edition | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| Pt. 1 | Marx as a productive force determinist | 5 |
| 1 | Marx's ambiguous legacy | 7 |
| 2 | Forces and relations of production | 17 |
| 3 | Marx's productive force determinism | 27 |
| 4 | Productive force determinism is Marxist orthodoxy | 60 |
| 5 | The origins of productive force determinism | 71 |
| Pt. 2 | Productive force determinism: a critique and an alternative | 81 |
| 6 | Productive force determinism and functional explanation | 84 |
| 7 | Productive force determinism: a critique | 92 |
| 8 | Productive force determinism: an alternative | 143 |
| Pt. 3 | 'Base and superstructure' in historical materialism | 175 |
| 9 | 'Base and superstructure': definition and determination | 177 |
| 10 | Modes of production: variant forms of the 'base' | 208 |
| 11 | The political superstructure | 251 |
| 12 | The 'idealistic superstructure' | 275 |
| Conclusion: Marxism, politics and history | 299 | |
| Bibliography | 302 | |
| Index of names and subjects | 311 |
Overview
Marx's theory of history is often regarded as the most enduring and fruitful aspect of his intellectual legacy. His "historical materialism" has been the inspiration for some of the best historical writing in the works of scholars such as Eric Hobsbawm, E.P.Thompson, Rodney Hilton and Robert Brenner. S.H. Rigby establishes Marx's claims about social structure and historical change, discusses their use in his own and his followers' writings, and assesses the validity of his theories. He argues that Marx's social ...