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A Zone of Engagement
An assessment of the seminal thinkers at the border of history and politics.
The texts in this volume offer critical assessments of a number of leading figures in contemporary intellectual life, who are in different ways thinkers at the intersection of history and politics. They include Roberto Unger, advocate of plasticity; the historians of antiquity and of revolution, Geoffrey de Ste. Croix and Isaac Deutscher; the philosophers of liberalism, Norberto Bobbio and Isaiah Berlin; the sociologists of power, Michael Mann and W.G. Runciman; the exponents of national identity, Andreas Hillgruber and Fernand Braudel; the ironists of science, Max Weber and Ernest Gellner; Carlo Ginzburg, explorer of cultural continuity, and Marshall Berman, herald of modernity. A concluding chapter looks at the idea of the end of history, recently advanced by Francis Fukuyama, in its successive versions from the nineteenth century to the present, and considers the situation of socialism today in the light of it.
The texts in this volume offer critical assessments of a number of leading figures in contemporary intellectual life, who are in different ways thinkers at the intersection of history and politics. They include Roberto Unger, advocate of plasticity; the historians of antiquity and of revolution, Geoffrey de Ste. Croix and Isaac Deutscher; the philosophers of liberalism, Norberto Bobbio and Isaiah Berlin; the sociologists of power, Michael Mann and W.G. Runciman; the exponents of national identity, Andreas Hillgruber and Fernand Braudel; the ironists of science, Max Weber and Ernest Gellner; Carlo Ginzburg, explorer of cultural continuity, and Marshall Berman, herald of modernity. A concluding chapter looks at the idea of the end of history, recently advanced by Francis Fukuyama, in its successive versions from the nineteenth century to the present, and considers the situation of socialism today in the light of it.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Perry Anderson
101 books268 followersPerry Anderson is an English Marxist intellectual and historian. He is Professor of History and Sociology at UCLA and an editor of the New Left Review. He is the brother of historian Benedict Anderson.
He was an influence on the New Left. He bore the brunt of the disapproval of E.P. Thompson in the latter's The Poverty of Theory, in a controversy during the late 1970s over the scientific Marxism of Louis Althusser, and the use of history and theory in the politics of the Left. In the mid-1960s, Thompson wrote an essay for the annual Socialist Register that rejected Anderson's view of aristocratic dominance of Britain's historical trajectory, as well as Anderson's seeming preference for continental European theorists over radical British traditions and empiricism. Anderson delivered two responses to Thompson's polemics, first in an essay in New Left Review (January-February 1966) called "Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism" and then in a more conciliatory yet ambitious overview, Arguments within English Marxism (1980).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_An...
He was an influence on the New Left. He bore the brunt of the disapproval of E.P. Thompson in the latter's The Poverty of Theory, in a controversy during the late 1970s over the scientific Marxism of Louis Althusser, and the use of history and theory in the politics of the Left. In the mid-1960s, Thompson wrote an essay for the annual Socialist Register that rejected Anderson's view of aristocratic dominance of Britain's historical trajectory, as well as Anderson's seeming preference for continental European theorists over radical British traditions and empiricism. Anderson delivered two responses to Thompson's polemics, first in an essay in New Left Review (January-February 1966) called "Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism" and then in a more conciliatory yet ambitious overview, Arguments within English Marxism (1980).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_An...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 6, 2016
I'm giving this one five stars as a lifetime achievement award to comrade Perry. One of his finest collections. Published around the fall of the Soviet Union, these essays try and make sense of a world in which capitalism has apparently become the only viable option for humanity. Though they are temperamentally poles apart - think Henry James versus MTV - the substance of Anderson's critique has many affinities with that of Slavoj Zizek.
November 26, 2025
An intellectual tour de force by Perry Anderson, published at that exact moment when history was said to have ended and prospects for socialism looked dim. These collected essays dazzle with their look at class struggle in the ancient Mediterranean world, explorations in Eurasian religions and languages, and Critical Law Theory, inter alia. The final essay by Anderson, "The Ends of History", an examination of the Francis Fukuyama thesis, is the one that merits the most discussion. Anderson has lately pronounced in NEW LEFT REVIEW that "neoliberalism is the most successful political ideology in history", its triumphs showcased from Buenos Aires to Ulan Baator. Does this mean Fukuyama was a prophet when he declared not only the Cold War over but history finished back in 1990, with no viable alternative to liberal democracy and free markets?. Anderson begs to differ. First, the philosophical grounds for such a declaration are not found in Fukuyama's master, Hegel. Hegel did not think history could ever be over. Fukuyama is mistaking a pronouncement of the synthesis between spirit and matter on the ideal plain, Hegel's own point of singularity, for political and economic history, on which he rendered no judgment. Second, if we announce that history is over in our own times then capitalism has not only reached perfection but resolved all differences inside and between nations. Who could make such an absurd claim in a world beset by wars, poverty, the exploitation of women, racism, rampant nationalism and the looming threat of ecological disaster? Finally, has neoliberalism wiped away all ideological challenges, with socialism cast into the dustbin of history? Anderson wraps up his polemic by considering the possible fates of socialism. What is its legacy? All socialist experiments might indeed, as Fukuyama thinks, be thought of as utopian, in the same category with the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. Another possibility is the model of the English Civil War. Cromwell pruned the British monarchy but proved unable to abolish it permanently. In this scenario socialism might be praised for forcing large-scale reforms on capitalism, for which even the capitalists are grateful. Lastly, the French Revolution offers some clues on the socialist future. It triumphed, violently to be sure, but took almost two centuries to secure liberty-equality-fraternity in France, and the task is still uncompleted. History, in Perry Anderson's view, has still to render a verdict, but the trial goes on.
May 28, 2023
I’ve not read much about socialism directly, so at several points the density of names and summary of past discussions left me more confused than I should have been.
Still, several of the essays are engaging (some less so, concerned with arguments that feel leas relevant today 30 years on). I am more liberal than anything else so I don’t have any skin in the game for various socialist debates but the book is a great way to join the discussion with the guidance of an extremely knowledgeable author.
The final essay, The Ends of History, is worth the purchase price alone. Anderson engages with Fukuyama at length, giving credit to where his arguments hold without ever giving up on the possibility that socialism could prevail someday.
Of his potential paths forward the one that seems most likely at this point (and to some extent has come true the past 30 years) is the integration of socialist policies into a broader liberal, capitalist, and democratic society.
Still, several of the essays are engaging (some less so, concerned with arguments that feel leas relevant today 30 years on). I am more liberal than anything else so I don’t have any skin in the game for various socialist debates but the book is a great way to join the discussion with the guidance of an extremely knowledgeable author.
The final essay, The Ends of History, is worth the purchase price alone. Anderson engages with Fukuyama at length, giving credit to where his arguments hold without ever giving up on the possibility that socialism could prevail someday.
Of his potential paths forward the one that seems most likely at this point (and to some extent has come true the past 30 years) is the integration of socialist policies into a broader liberal, capitalist, and democratic society.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews