March Hare 60 day free trial

I'm going to take this group for a test drive during the next two months.

During that time I plan to read:

Interesting books you have there. Looking forward to your thoughts.

Love your thread title. I'll also be interested in where these books take you.

Thanks for the welcome.

This summary of the Brenner debate is a useful starting point for anyone who wants to take a peek.

Like the looks of your book lineup. The Brenner Debate in particular interests me. For some reason, North America has not taken on agrarian history as an academic subject, or even a subject for that matter, so it is difficult to find work relating to the area.

I may move on to Wallerstein next. If I recall correctly, part of the first volume deals with the reappearance of slave labor in the colonial periphery of Europe.

>4 March-Hare: interesting link.

I agree Dan, and I saved it for later... then forgot about it! I need to go back to it.

Sidetracking a little to read a couple of essays in this:

A good book to be sidetracked into.

Indeed.

I've been meaning to read the section on dandyism in the Painter of Modern Life for quite some time. I think you mentioned in the past that you were an enneagram four. So am I. What more needs to be said? This stuff is meant for us.

Enneagram five, but I do love that space at the bottom of the circle between four and five. I think that is Baudelaire's space too. The meeting point between art and science.

Oops. My bad.

Yes, there are affinities. Schiller comes to mind here.

I’m almost finished with a read through of the Brenner book. Here are my first thoughts.

In a nutshell, the book is a critique of and debate about the demographic model of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The critique is that the model fails because it does not adequately explain variations in outcomes between England and France and between Western and Eastern Europe. What does account for these variations is the different political organization of the different regions. In particular, in England the nobility were in a position to reduce feudal tenure without increasing the political power of the peasantry. It was the combination of both these factors that positioned them to begin the process of primitive capitalist accumulation. All of this is better summarized in the link at post 4.

Without further reading it is hard for me to assess the empirical claims in the replies, but I will say that I find Brenner’s approach (in the main) to be correct. To be sure, I am fascinated with mentalities and their sedimentation in institutions and naturally find explanations relying on these more convincing then ones that do not. Maybe I am more predisposed than convinced.

Indeed, this raises the larger question of Marxist history in general. Basically the question is: how much “ideology” are you going to allow to seep in as an explanatory factor?

Here is Guy Bois in his contribution on this very point:

“No less significant is the fact that Brenner has kept silent about the work of Polish historian Witold Kula, who was the first to cast a theoretical glance at the feudal system and who succeeded in opening a wide breach in the positions of empiricism and dogmatism. As long as such an attitude as Brenner’s persists, that is to say as long as there is a refusal to regard the feudal mode of production as in itself a valid object of study, and to recognize that the way in which it functions still remains to be fully understood, penetration of the mystery of the origins of capitalism is prevented and a tedious oscillation from empiricism to speculation will result.

The error of such “political Marxism” lies not only in its neglect of the most operative concept of historical materialism (the mode of production). It also lies in its abandonment of the field of economic realities-to the great advantage of the Malthusian school.”

Wow. There is a lot there. I am tempted to do a separate post unpacking this thought, but I have another text in mind that I would need to track down first. Nevertheless, the gist is clear. The “how much ideology” question is being posed.

Bottom line, I really enjoyed this book as it touched on many of my own interests and was a spur to further thinking. I’m not done with this one yet.

Bois and Kula are on order.

Adding this to the currently reading pile:

One more going on the currently reading pile:

Just started reading this:



It was an impulse purchase. I was struck by the following quote in one of the reviews: "For me the most sacred thing imaginable is to allow my steps to be guided by the spirit within me, blindly, wholly trusting it wherever the path may lead, to poverty or riches, to the gallows or to the throne."