Suchergebnisse

A review essay on G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1978); D. Ross Gandy's Marx and History: From Primitive Society to the Communist Future (Austin: U of Texas Press, 1979); James Miller's History and Human Existence: From Marx to Merleau-Ponty (Berkeley & Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1979); Melvin Rader's Marx's Interpretation of History (Stanford: Stanford U Press, 1978); & E. P. Thompson's The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (London: The Merlin Press, 1978 [see listings in IRPS No. 35]). These studies on the foundations of historical materialism are recommended for their interpretive & technical sophistication. G. A. Cohen uses the methods of analytic philosophy as an aid in understanding the nature of productive forces, the relation between infra- & superstructure, & the difference between use-value & exchange-value. D. Ross Gandy, a historian of ideas, argues for a nonreductive, nonfundamentalist approach to historical materialism. James Miller demonstrates the importance of twentieth-century Marxist humanists to both the interpretation of Karl Marx himself & to the present-day intellectual respectability of Marxist theory. The American philosopher Melvin Rader looks at Marx's approach to history as a much more flexible interpretation of Marxism. G. A. Cohen's student, William Shaw, has developed a new definition of technology to investigate the operation of what Marx terms "productive forces." The social historian E. P. Thompson re-examines the historical-causal power of Marx's analysis of productive forces & has constructed his own notion of "experience" as a central category in the understanding of all social transformations. All these studies have avoided a discussion of historical materialism as a form of "historicism" & of Marx's view of history as a "philosophy" of inevitable development. Instead they have insisted on a clearer understanding of Marx's historical practices & a more thorough comprehension of his methodology. S. McAneny

This collection opens with an inquiry into the assumptions and methods of the historical study of culture, comparing the new cultural history with the old. Thirteen essays follow, each defining a problem within a particular culture. In the first section, Biography and Autobiography, three scholars explore historically changing types of self-conception, each reflecting larger cultural meanings; essays included examine Italian Renaissance biographers and the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Mohandas Gandhi. A second group of contributors explore problems raised by the writing of history itself, especially as it relates to a notion of culture. Here examples are drawn from the writings of Thucydides, Jacob Burckhardt, and the art historians Alois Riegl and Josef Strzygowski. In the third section, Politics, Nationalism, and Culture, the essays explore relationships between cultural creativity and national identity, with case studies focusing on the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, the place of Castile within the national history of Spain, and the impact of World War I on work of Thomas Mann. The final section, Cultural Translation, raises the complex questions of cultural influence and the transmission of traditions over time through studies of Philo of Alexandria's interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, Erasmus' use of Socrates, Jean Bodin's conception of Roman law, and adaptations of the Hebrew Bible for American children