It is with apprehension but also conviction that I defend Marxism today1apprehension because we live in a period that is suspicious of visions of alternative futures, skeptical of grand historical narrative, dismissive of materialist explanations, rejecting of class analysis while tolerating capitalism's defects and pathologies as unavoidable and natural; conviction because we live in a period ...

When we started a conversation about putting together an edited collection on Theories of Race and Ethnicity, we had in mind the need for a more up-to-date overview of the field of race and ethnic studies than the one provided in John Rex and David Mason’s (1986) Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations. That volume had come out in the mid 1980s, after a period of passionate, and often conflictual...

This article is devoted to the work of American scientist Harry Braverman. The relevance due, firstly, transformation system social stratification occurring in society middle twentieth century, as well search for relevant approaches its study. Secondly, fact that Russian sociology does not pay enough attention Braverman’s unique contribution development theory structure, his active participatio...

The non-Marxist, or neo-Malthusian, approach to the study of population problems is criticized, with particular reference to the situation in Africa. An alternative Marxist approach is proposed in which the solution to population problems is sought either in revolution or radical improvements in social welfare involving the maximum egalitarian distribution of the benefits of social and economi...

An eminent medievalist and one of the most influential of the small band of Marxist historians working in the UK before 1968, Rodney Hilton’s work on the development of the English feudal system into industrial capitalism was, despite its renown, ultimately mistaken. The problems with Hilton’s account were largely inherited from Maurice Dobb, whose interpretation of Marxist theory led him to ex...

In this article, I take issue with the conceptual apparatus and methodological prescriptions of comparative historical sociology. I will suggest that its problematic features are longstanding. In consequence, a dominant tendency of the field – that of returning to the ‘classics’ as a means of overcoming deficiencies found in more recent contributions – has the effect of reinforcing what is prob...

Urban sociology: critical essays is largely a set of translations of articles on urban development, first published in French in 1968-72, and written by authors adopting a Marxist perspective. Chris Pickvance's collection was one of the first attempts to introduce to an English-language audience a new research tradition that profoundly influenced not just urban sociology but also urban, regiona...

The distinction between state and civil society is deeply rooted in both sociology and political theory (Barkey and Parikh 1991:525; Bobbio 1999:115; Habermas 1989:19). Even thinkers who argue that civil society and the state ‘interact’ often retain the basic conceptual opposition between the terms. Barkey and Parikh go so far as to characterize recent work on the state as “the state-society li...