The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Total Pages : 350
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789004230088
ISBN-13 : 9004230084
Rating : 4/5 (88 Downloads)

Synopsis The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

This Reader includes selections from Ellen Meiksins Wood’s groundbreaking scholarship, providing an overview of her original interpretations of capitalism, precapitalist societies, the state, political theory, democracy, citizenship, liberalism, civil society, the Enlightenment, globalization, imperialism, and socialism.

Citizens to Lords

Citizens to Lords
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 375
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781781684269
ISBN-13 : 178168426X
Rating : 4/5 (69 Downloads)

Synopsis Citizens to Lords by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory. She traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history-a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wodd argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, 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 indelibly stamped our modern world.

Democracy Against Capitalism

Democracy Against Capitalism
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 320
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781786630179
ISBN-13 : 1786630176
Rating : 4/5 (79 Downloads)

Synopsis Democracy Against Capitalism by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

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 Origin of Capitalism

The Origin of Capitalism
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 224
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781784787783
ISBN-13 : 1784787787
Rating : 4/5 (83 Downloads)

Synopsis The Origin of Capitalism by : 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.

A Social History of Western Political Thought

A Social History of Western Political Thought
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 903
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781839766107
ISBN-13 : 1839766107
Rating : 4/5 (07 Downloads)

Synopsis A Social History of Western Political Thought by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. In the first volume, she traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history - a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, 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, Wood offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have indelibly stamped our modern world. In the second volume, Wood addresses the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, which have all been attributed to the "early modern" period. Nearly everything about its history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood vividly explores the ideas of the canonical thinkers, not as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day.

Peasant-Citizen and Slave

Peasant-Citizen and Slave
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 225
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781784781972
ISBN-13 : 1784781975
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Synopsis Peasant-Citizen and Slave by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

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.

Liberty and Property

Liberty and Property
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 337
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781844677528
ISBN-13 : 1844677524
Rating : 4/5 (28 Downloads)

Synopsis Liberty and Property by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

The formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment have all been attributed to the “early modern” period. Nearly everything about its history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood vividly explores the ideas of the canonical thinkers, not as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day.

Empire of Capital

Empire of Capital
Author :
Publisher : Verso
Total Pages : 206
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1844675181
ISBN-13 : 9781844675180
Rating : 4/5 (81 Downloads)

Synopsis Empire of Capital by : Ellen Meiksins Wood

What does imperialism mean in the absence of colonial conquest and imperial rule?

Mind and Politics

Mind and Politics
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 204
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520332485
ISBN-13 : 0520332482
Rating : 4/5 (85 Downloads)

Synopsis Mind and Politics by : Ellen M. Wood

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

The Socialist Feminist Project

The Socialist Feminist Project
Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
Total Pages : 433
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781583670682
ISBN-13 : 1583670688
Rating : 4/5 (82 Downloads)

Synopsis The Socialist Feminist Project by : Nancy Holmstrom

Socialist Feminism brings together the most important recent socialist feminist writings on a wide range of topics: sex and reproduction, the family, wage labor, social welfare and public policy, the place of sex and gender in politics, and the philosophical foundations of socialist feminism.