Suchergebnisse

For over a century the foundations of Athenian political economy have been debated by scholarly camps broadly described as primitivist/substantivist, modernist and Marxist and involving political economists, sociologists and anthropologists as well as historians and classicists. Ancient Athens and modern ideology demonstrates the dialectic of intellectual and substantive history and offers a consensual resolution to the debate by examining the interplay of values, theories and evidence in the contributions of Max Weber (1864-1920), Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) and Moses Finley (1912-86), widely recognised as successive champions of the primitivist cause. Pursuing Finley's own 'official' account of his intellectual roots and hegemonic perspective, the book starts with Weber and Polanyi and ends by finding the actual views of all three far more complex than generally assumed by their followers and critics. Through systematic scrutiny and contextualisation of tensions in their work arising from the resistance of facts ancient and modern to theories and the varied dissonance of both with ideological priorities the case for a radical reconsideration of the debate and its protagonists is argued. The book concludes with an account of Athenian developments and institutions which draws on recent scholarship associated with modernism and Marxism as well as primitivism. The work's interdisciplinary approach and multidisciplinary scope will be of major interest to all concerned with the historical sciences in the broad sense of the term.

Homa Katouzian's exceptionally perceptive, influential, and wide-ranging scholarship has been marked by three mutually reinforcing characteristics: a profound and detailed mastery of Iran's multi-civilizational heritage; a comparatively informed focus on the country's distinct historical trajectory; and an existentially grounded pluralist perspective in examining and evaluating the country's major political turning points and actors. These features are already fully displayed in his early magnum opus,The Political Economy of Modern Iran(1981), whose historical and political conclusions have been underlined time and again by the subsequent and often shocking national and international turns. In the intervening period, Katouzian has developed the cyclical theory of Iran's history as an "aridosolatic," "pickaxe" or "short-termist" society. Of the important questions that his contributions raise or address, this paper examines the long-term continuity of Twelver/Imami Shi'ism's trajectory which uniquely in the twentieth century Muslim and other worlds produced the leaders of two great revolutions. The result entails the addition of a still unfolding evolutionary-institutional layer within Katouzian's research program which may enhance its explanatory power and reinforce its political vision.

Homa Katouzian's exceptionally perceptive, influential, and wide-ranging scholarship has been marked by three mutually reinforcing characteristics: a profound and detailed mastery of Iran's multi-civilizational heritage; a comparatively informed focus on the country's distinct historical trajectory; and an existentially grounded pluralist perspective in examining and evaluating the country's major political turning points and actors. These features are already fully displayed in his early magnum opus, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (1981), whose historical and political conclusions have been underlined time and again by the subsequent and often shocking national and international turns. In the intervening period, Katouzian has developed the cyclical theory of Iran's history as an "aridosolatic," "pickaxe" or "short-termist" society. Of the important questions that his contributions raise or address, this paper examines the long-term continuity of Twelver/Imami Shi'ism's trajectory which uniquely in the twentieth century Muslim and other worlds produced the leaders of two great revolutions. The result entails the addition of a still unfolding evolutionary-institutional layer within Katouzian's research program which may enhance its explanatory power and reinforce its political vision.

Modern scholarly accounts of ancient Greece and more particularly the research programme which broadly frames Moses Finley's contributions are generally traced to George Grote's politically anchored History of Greece and re-evaluationof Athenian democracy. However, notwithstanding their far-reachinginfluence, Finley's writings display an exceptional complexity that has invited a wide spectrum of contradictory interpretations and evaluations. This article extends my previous study of Finley's Athens by locating and exploring an unresolved and still significant debate that he held with himself through the major political and economic writings of his last period (1973-85). It thereby discloses the normative, theoretical, and empirical demands that, on the one hand, informed his account of 'the ancient economy' and necessitated its overall incoherence, and, on the other, allowed for a coherently normative account of 'ancient politics'. In the process, some notable claims about Finley's work and politics are clarified, and it is shown why 'Finley's ghost is [still] everywhere' even though the short twentieth century that spanned his life, posed its major questions and set the context and constraints of his answers, has long been over.

Charges that Max Weber is a preeminent classical Orientalist are considered in light of Edward Said's (1978) construction of Orientalism as a discourse of domination. These charges are grounded in three assumptions: (1) Weber viewed the West as superior over the rest of the world. (2) He played down the role of colonialism in stemming the development of the Orient. (3) Weber claimed a unity of religion & culture, which led him to characterize the Orient in misleading ways. It is suggested that these changes could be proven only if it could be shown that the original failure of modernization in the Orient was due to colonialism; but this cannot be proven. Moreover, it is shown that a truly Weberian research program would be more subtle concerning the role of religion than his critics have claimed. Employing a Weberian analysis, it is argued that the contemporary Islamic project will ultimately fail to unify & integrate Islamic countries, because it is incapable of leading the modernization of this region. 37 References. D. M. Ryfe