History, Power, Ideology: Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology

Is Marxism a reflection of the conceptual system it fights against, rather than a truly comprehensive approach to human history? Drawing on recent work in anthropology, history, and philosophy, Donald Donham confronts this problem in analyzing a radically different social order: the former Maale kingdom of southern Ethiopia.

Unlike capitalist societies, wherein inequality is organized by contracts between "free" individuals, in Maale powerful men were thought to "beget" others through contr...