A Trumpet of Sedition: Political Theory and the Rise of Capitalism, 1509-1688

by Ellen Meiksins Wood, Neal Wood

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the rise of capitalism and the modern nation-state, the establishment of an increasingly international economy, and the beginnings of modern colonialism. It was a turbulent time, marked by revolutionary developments in culture and religion, social conflict, political upheaval, and civil war. It was also an age of passionate debate and radical innovation in political theory and practice. Many contemporary political ideologies and concepts—ideas of the state, civil society, property, and individual rights, to name a few—can trace their ancestry to this era.
Illuminating the roots of contemporary Western political thought, A Trumpet of Sedition surveys canonical texts by prominent thinkers such as Thomas More, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, radicals like the Levellers and Gerrard Winstanley and other less well known but important figures. In clear and lively prose, while situating them in their social and political context in new and original ways and contrasting the English case to others in Europe. By examining political ideas not merely as free-floating abstractions but as living encounters with the historical experience—the formation of the English state and the rise of agrarian capitalism— A Trumpet of Sedition illuminates the roots of contemporary Western political thought.

Genres: History, Politics, Economics, Philosophy

164 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Ellen Meiksins Wood FRSC (April 12, 1942 – January 14, 2016) was an American-Canadian Marxist historian and scholar. From 1967 to 1996, she taught political science at Glendon College, York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

With Robert Brenner, Ellen Meiksins Wood articulated the foundations of Political Marxism, a strand of Marxist theory that places history at the centre of its analysis. It provoked a turn away from structuralisms and teleology towards historical specificity as contested process and lived praxis.

Meiksins Wood's many books and articles, were sometimes written in collaboration with her husband, Neal Wood (1922–2003). Her work has been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Romanian, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Of these, The Retreat from Class received the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1988.

Wood served on the editorial committee of the British journal New Left Review between 1984 and 1993. In 1996, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada, a marker of distinguished scholarship. From 1997 to 2000, Wood was an editor, along with Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy, of Monthly Review, the socialist magazine.

Reviews

[Orçun Güzer]

Wood’ların 1997 tarihli bu çalışmasından gerçekten çok şey öğrendim. Ortaçağ ve erken modern çağda Avrupa’da oluşan teolojik-politik direniş hareketleri zaten özel ilgi alanıma giriyor; burada ayrıca İngiltere’de tarım kapitalizminin doğuş zamanındaki (16-17. yy), İç Savaş ve Cromwell devrimi dönemindeki politik fikir çatışmalarını takip ediyoruz. Batı Marksizminin bu iki önemli temsilcisi, son derece açık bir dille, isabetli yorumlarla bize o dönemin, yani kapitalizmin İngiltere’de doğuş yüzyıllarının politik hattını, ekonomik bileşenleriyle birlikte anlatıyor ve yorumluyor. Yazarların en güçlü yanları, tartışmanın farklı tarafları arasındaki bağlantıları serimleyebilmeleri ve söz konusu politik düşünürleti olağanüstü bir nesnellikle ele alabilmeleri. Bu yüzdendir ki Ütopya yazarı Thomas More’un neden bir gelenekçi olduğunu ya da monarşi yanlısı Thomas Hobbes’un fikirlerini nasıl “doğal hak” kavramı üstüne inşa ettiğini görebiliyorsunuz. Beni en çok heyecanlandıran kısım ise, ortak arazilerin çitlenmesine karşı çıkan Düzleyiciler (Levellers) ve ortak mülkiyetli bir tarım komünü kurmaya çalışan Kazıcılar (Diggers). Bu arada çok sevdiğim protest grup New Model Army’nin adının da, devrim zamanı Cromwell ile güç birliği yapan radikal halk birliğinin adı olduğunu öğrenmiş oldum :)

NOT: Yayınevinin çevirisi iyi ama sondaki kaynakçayı eklemeyi unutmuşlar sanırım - eğer öyleyse bu büyük bir hata.

[Jack Theaker]

What an exciting and informative read! It's an unlikely introduction to the English Radical tradition and a hardy contribution to historical materialism. The Wood's give due respect to Thinkers such as More, Thomas Smith, and Hooker and how they were the germ of more famous political philosophers such as Locke and Hobbes. It is one of the best critiques of Lockean political philosophy I have seen and completely tears apart his justification for private property. Reading into the thought of this period and how property was justified in the advent of capitalism, really makes you understand the incoherence and contradictions within it. For example, I found it particularly interesting that Henry Ireton, in attempting to stave off the levellers, was determined to exclaim private property as a social construct created by man and not some natural god given right. This is due to the fact that if it were to create so much inequality and misery, how could it be divinely ordained? Placing it as a historical construct gives it much less accountability and means that instead of it being abolished, it should just be tempered around the edges.

Its analysis of the Putney debates and the civil war I found quite compelling as well. I was most fascinated by Gerrard Winstanley and his formation of the St. George's Hill commune in Surrey down the road from me. Ironically, even though it was one of the first experiments in communistic living in the world, it is now one of the most expensive places to live outside London and home to such celebrities as Ringo Starr and Tom Jones.