In this original and provocative book Ellen Meiksins Wood reminds us that capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature... read full description
reviews
Apr 07, 2008
Rhyd
rated it: 
While I'm still waiting for someone to do a treatise on the alchemical language employed by Marx to explain Capital and the magic the Capitalists/Bourgeoisie employ ("everything that is solid melts into air..."), I've had to settle instead with general clarifications.
So in the meantime, TOoC was quite useful. This is the second time i've read it, though for some reason the first reading (about 6 years ago) really must have been inadequate. Or, rather say, I had at that More...
So in the meantime, TOoC was quite useful. This is the second time i've read it, though for some reason the first reading (about 6 years ago) really must have been inadequate. Or, rather say, I had at that More...
Jul 01, 2009
Alain
rated it: 
This is a neo-Marxist tract by a famous neo-Marxist. She concentrates her argument on 17th and 18th century England but when need bee she goes as far back as the Norman invasion. The thing you always have to remember here is that she's preaching to other Marxists, telling them to try to avoid falling into the trap of the teleological interpretations of history, as their opponents the right-wingers are so fond of doing, themselves. She's an apostle of epistemological study of history. She spend
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Dec 04, 2010
david
rated it:
Wood, like Cedric Robinson, questions the analytical suppositions that many theorists of capitalism and Marxism have proposed. Her focus on the how much of the justification for capitalism is naturalized is important to understanding her key point that capitalism required specific historical social forms. I do not understand, especially after reading Robinson, how racialization and other forms of difference designation are involved in her discussion of the Enlightenment and how this reconciles
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Mar 05, 2010
Dan
rated it: 
The best history on the development of capitalist social relations. Hands down. Ellen M. Wood is a world class scholar. I recommend it unreservedly.
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