Studies In Pre-capitalist Modes Of Production: Historical Materialist Volume 97

Description

In this collection British and Argentinian historians analyze the Asiatic, Germanic, peasant, slave, feudal, and tributary modes of production by exploring historical processes and diverse problems of Marxist theory. The studies treat an array of pre-capitalist social formations, including medieval Iceland and Norway, Byzantium, the Roman Empire, ancient Egypt, medieval Len and Castile, and the Castilian later Middle Ages.

Laura de Graca, Ph.D. (2005), is Professor of Medieval History at the University of La Plata (Argentina). She has published several works on medieval Castile, including "Poder politico y dinamica feudal. Procesos de diferenciacion social en distintas formas senoriales (siglos XIV-XVI)" (Valladolid, 2009). Andrea Zingarelli, Ph.D. (2003), is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History and Egyptology at the University of La Plata. She has published several works on ancient Egyptian society and economy, including "Trade and Market in New Kingdom Egypt" (Oxford, 2010).

"A Marxist analysis must relate the parts dialectically to a totality, and cannot be served by reductive analytical categories that are defined by fixed internal characteristics, rather than by their dynamic interrelations. The best contributions in this fascinating collection are alive to the way that Marx developed his dialectical approach to analysis, and in a range of detailed case studies, are able to show the fruitful potential the study of modes of production can still provide. Indeed, if Marxists can overcome subservience to positivistic analytical presumptions, and recapture Marx's own way of thinking, then we are only at the beginning of a potential transformation in our understanding of human history." -Dominic Alexander, Counterfire