The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View - Softcover

Wood, Ellen Meiksins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1859843921 ISBN 13: 9781859843925

Publisher: Verso Books, 2002

Synopsis

Capitalism was born in England, yet the dominant Western conceptions of modernity come from elsewhere, notably from France, the historical model of 'bourgeois' society. 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, signalled the persistence of precapitalist 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. Weaving together economic and political history with the history of ideas, Wood ranges across a broad spectrum of current debates, from the 'Nairn-Anderson these' to the contributions of J.C.D. Clark and Alan Macfarlane, and over a wide variety of topics: the development of British capitalism and French absolutism; the state, the nation and their symbolic representations; revolution and tradition; the cultural patterns of English speech; urbanism, ruralism and the landscape garden; ideas of sovereignty, democracy, property and progress. This book will be as interesting and provocative to observers of contemporary capitalism as to historians of early modern Europe or Western political thought.

About this title

Review

"This extremely valuable book offers an insightful tour of the historical debates surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism ... a must read for anyone with even the remotest interest in the origins of capitalism, or economic thought in general, from undergraduates through professionals."
--Choice

"The writing is so supple and accessible, and the argument so persuasive, it's like watching a cloudy mixture of ideas being turned into a clear solution."
--Adrienne Rich

"[A] brilliant book ... Into the central thread of her argument, Ellen Meiksins Wood has woven a wonderfully rich texture of comment on the arguments and debates that preceded her ... not just a valuable new interpretation of an old history, it carries important lessons for our own times."
--The Spokesman

About the Author

Ellen Meiksins Wood is Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. Among her books are: Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy and The Retreat from Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1986.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1859843921
• ISBN 13: 9781859843925
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 216