Bøger af Ellen Meiksins Wood

How did the dynamic economic system we know as capitalism develop among the peasants and lords of feudal Europe?In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concerning the birth of capitalism, imperialism, and the modern nation state. Capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce. Rather, it is a late and localized product of very specific historical conditions, which required great transformations in social relations and in the relationship between humans and nature.

Without parallel in sophistication of coverage for readers curious about labor, Rising from the Ashes? provides sharp analysis of the hottest issues being debated by labor scholars and activists. Topics covered include the changing composition of the international working class, patterns of work under contemporary capitalism, the relationship of race and gender to class, the promise and limitations of recent eruptions of labor militancy, and the strategic options available to the labor movement today.

Marxism this book argues, is still the most effective way of understanding capitalism. Ellen Meiksins Wood reformulates the Marxist theory of history while exploring the historical particularity of capitalism as a system of social relations. Then, tracing democracy from antiquity to the present, she examines its ambiguous relationship with capitalism.

In this era of 'globalization', we hear a great deal about a 'new imperialism', the hegemony of global capital and its chief enforcer, the US. Today, with the US promising an endless 'war against terrorism' and a policy of 'pre-emptive defence', this notion seems more plausible than ever.

Historian and political thinker Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that theories of ';postmodern' fragmentation, ';difference,' and con-tingency can barely accommodate the idea of capitalism, let alone subject it to critique. In this book she sets out to renew the critical program of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining its relation to capitalism, and raising questions about how democracy might go beyond the limits imposed on it.

The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that, despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society, the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen, juridically and politically independent, accounts for much that is remarkable in Athenian political institutions and culture. From a survey of historical writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the focus of which distorted later debates, Wood goes on to take issue with influential arguments, such as those of G.E.M. de Ste Croix, about the importance of slavery in agricultural production. The social, political and cultural influence of the peasant-citizen is explored in a way which questions some of the most cherished conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography.

A historical essay on old regimes and modern states In this lively and wide-ranging book, Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that what is supposed to have epitomized bourgeois modernity, especially the emergence of a ';modern' state and political culture in Continental Europe, signaled the persistence of pre-capitalist social property relations. Conversely, the absence of a ';modern' state and political discourse in England testified to the presence of a well-developed capitalism. The fundamental flaws in the British economy are not just the symptoms of arrested development but the contradictions of the capitalist system itself. Britain today, Wood maintains, is the most thoroughly capitalist culture in Europe.

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood lays out her innovative approach to the history of political theory and traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Her ';social history' is a significant departure from other contextual interpretations. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political discourse but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato and Aristotle, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St. Paul and St. Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Citizens to Lords offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have stamped their imprint upon history and the present day.

Covering Wood's scholarship in various fields, this reader serves as an introduction to one of the most important contemporary Marxists.