| Description |
1 online resource (xix, 406 pages) |
| Series |
Historical materialism book series, 1570-1522 ; v. 25 |
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Historical materialism book series ; 25
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| Contents |
Contents; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Chapter One Introduction: Themes in Historical Materialism; 1.1. Questions of theory; 1.2. A Marxist characterisation of 'Asiatic' régimes; 1.2.1. From the Asiatic to the tributary mode: Marx, Haldon and beyond; 1.2.2. Ruler and ruling class: configurations of the tributary mode; 1.3. Some general conclusions; Chapter Two Modes of Production in a Materialist Conception of History; 2.1. The retreat into historical formalism; 2.2. Produktionsweise as 'labour-process' and 'epoch of production'; 2.3. Levels of abstraction in historical materialism |
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2.3.1. Wage-labour as abstract determination and determinate abstraction2.3.2. Serf-owning capital; 2.3.3. The defining role of the laws of motion; 2.3.4. The failure of abstraction in vulgar Marxism; 2.4. Reading history backwards; 2.5. Slavery and the world-market; 2.5.1. 'Slavery'; 2.5.2. The nascent world-market; 2.6. Feudal production; 2.6.1. The estate; 2.6.2. Peculiarities of the 'second serfdom'; 2.6.3. Commodity-feudalism as the pure form; 2.6.4. Modes of production as objects of long duration; 2.6.5. Two brief conclusions; 2.7. Simple-commodity production: a 'determination of form' |
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2.7.1. The peasant mode of production2.7.2. The simple-commodity producer as wage-slave; Chapter Three Historical Arguments for a 'Logic of Deployment' in 'Precapitalist' Agriculture; 3.1. Part I; 3.2. Part Ii; 3.3. Part Iii; Chapter Four Workers Before Capitalism; Chapter Five The Fictions of Free Labour: Contract, Coercion, and so-called Unfree Labour; 5.1. Premises: the elusive reality of consent; 5.2. A Marxism of liberal mystifications?; 5.3. Forms of exploitation based on wage-labour; 5.4. 'Free contract' in Sartre's Critique; 5.5. Summary |
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Chapter Six Agrarian History and the Labour-Organisation of Byzantine Large Estates6.1. Introduction; 6.2. A historiography of abstractions; 6.3 Rural stratification: geouchountes, ktetores and ergatai; 6.4. The case for permanent labour; 6.5. Restructuring in the later empire; 6.6. The new estates; 6.7. The labour-organisation of sixth-century estates; 6.8. Conclusion; Chapter Seven Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: What Kind of Transition? (A Discussion of Chris Wickham's magnum opus); 7.1. Introduction: Marxist uncertainties; 7.2. Background to the late empire |
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7.3. Unresolved issues7.4. The reshaping of relations of production; 7.4.1. The legacy of the colonate; 7.4.2. Slavery and the post-Roman labour-force; 7.4.3. The legacy of direct management; 7.4.4. What happened to the aristocracy?; 7.5. Final comments: Wickham and modes of production; Chapter Eight Aristocracies, Peasantries and the Framing of the Early Middle Ages; 8.1. Introduction; 8.2. Aristocracies; 8.3. The agrarian watershed of the seventh century; 8.4. Critique of Wickham; 8.5. The East: vulnerability; Chapter Nine Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism |
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9.1. Historiographies of capital |
| Summary |
The essays collected here straddle four decades of work in both historiography and Marxist theory, combining source-based historical work in a wide range of languages with sophisticated discussion of Marx's categories. Key themes include the distinctions that are crucial to restoring complexity to the Marxist notion of a 'mode of production'; the emergence of medieval relations of production; the origins of capitalism; the dichotomy between free and unfree labour; and essays in agrarian history that range widely from Byzantine Egypt to 19th-century colonialism. The essays demonstrate the impor |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Historical materialism.
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Marxian historiography.
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POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Ideologies -- Communism & Socialism.
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Historical materialism
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Marxian historiography
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9789004183728 |
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9004183728 |
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9789004183681 |
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900418368X |
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