Marxism and Anthropology: The History of a Relationship

by Maurice Bloch

Examining the writings of Marx and Engels on primitive societies and drawing attention to inconsistencies in their analysis of pre-capitalist societies, this study proceeds to evaluate the anthropological theories of the successors of Marx and Engels as well as linking the controversies
concerning anthropology among Marxists and among Soviet anthropologists to the political evolution of Marxism. The book concludes with an exploration of the renewed interest in Marxist concepts displayed by contemporary American, British, and French anthropologists.

Genres: Anthropology, Social Science, Sociology

Paperback

First published January 13, 1983

Reviews

[Laya · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

Skim-read half of this book. Might have enjoyed it more if my engagement with anthropology wasn't primarily as a sub-discipline. Wonder how this would be updated now after how anthropology has broken out of studying on 'primitive' societies and has begun to offer brilliant insights into global political economy through wonderful multi-sited ethnographies.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Misleading title: more a synthesis of marx theory (an ok one) than it's relation to anthropology.

[Lily Bronski · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent (if abbreviated) history of the entanglements and repulsions between Marxism and anthropology and the factors that determined this; balanced and thoughtful. My one gripe is that he represents ideology and hegemony as derived primarily instrumentally (via a vaguely teleological and unclear causality), rather than as originating organically from material and social conditions of existence and the reproduction in the collective consciousness of patterns as they exist. This drives a lot of his conclusions about the need to represent "primitive" societies as classed, which I think is certainly not necessary and probably not desirable. But this is a view held very pervasively, so it's hard to fault him too greatly for that, and his argument as a whole is persuasive and important.

[Hamad Abdulsamad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just wish that this book can be re-written to include all the discussions from the 80s till this moment.