Making History - Softcover

The problem of historical change has come to assume central importance among English-speaking social scientists in the past ten to 15 years. Much attention has been focused on how we relate institutions and institutional change to actions, and how we think of history as the outcome of this process. This book takes a fresh look at both Marxist and non-Marxist positions in this debate, examining in detail the work of Hobsbawm, Thompson, Cohen, Althusser, Giddens and Habermas amongst others. The author argues that both functionalism and methodological individualism, and the various attempts to reconcile these extremes, are untenable. Drawing on classical Marxism, analytical philosophy and recent historical work, he has produced a contribution to the debate, which could affect profoundly its terms in the future. The work is aimed at undergraduates and graduates in social and political theory, sociology, politics and Marxist theory.

Alex Callinicos, D.Phil. (1979) in Philosophy, University of Oxford, is Professor of Politics at the University of York (UK). He has written widely about Marxism and social theory. His most recent books are Social Theory (1999), Equality (2000), Against the Third Way (2001) and An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (2003), all published by Polity.