Karl Marx, Anthropologist

by Patterson, Thomas C.

• ISBN13: 9781845205096
• ISBN10: 184520509X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-15
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

After being widely rejected in the late 20th century the work of Karl Marx is now being reassessed by many theorists and activists. Karl Marx, Anthropologist explores how this most influential of modern thinkers is still highly relevant for Anthropology today.Marx was profoundly influenced by critical Enlightenment thought. He believed that humans were social individuals that simultaneously satisfied and forged their needs in the contexts of historically particular social relations and created cultures. Marx continually refined the empirical, philosophical, and practical dimensions of his anthropology throughout his lifetime.Assessing key concepts, from the differences between class-based and classless societies to the roles of exploitation, alienation and domination in the making of social individuals, Karl Marx, Anthropologist is an essential guide to Marx's anthropological thought for the 21st century.

Author Biography

Tom Patterson is a distinguished professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of California at Riverside.He is author of many publications including Marx's Ghost: Conversations with Archaeologists (2003) and A Social History of Anthropology in the United States (2001).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Chronology	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Polemics, Caveats, and Standpoints	p. 3
Organization of the Book	p. 5
The Enlightenment and Anthropology	p. 9
Early Enlightenment Thought	p. 10
The New Anthropology of the Enlightenment	p. 15
The Institutionalization of Anthropology	p. 23
Marx's Anthropology	p. 39
What are Human Beings?	p. 41
History	p. 51
Truth and Praxis	p. 57
Human Natural Beings	p. 65
Charles Darwin and the Development of Modern Evolutionary Theory	p. 67
Human Natural Beings: Bodies That Walk, Talk, Make Tools, and Have Culture	p. 74
Marx on the Naturalization of Social Inequality	p. 87
History, Culture, and Social Formation	p. 91
Marx's Historical-Dialectical Conceptual Framework	p. 93
Pre-Capitalist Societies: Limited, Local, and Vital	p. 105
Capitalism and the Anthropology of the Modern World	p. 117
The Transition to Capitalism and its Development	p. 119
The Articulation of Modes of Production	p. 128
Property, Power, and Capitalist States	p. 138
Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century	p. 145
Social Relations and the Formation of Social Individuals	p. 147
Anthropology: "The Study of People in Crisis by People in Crisis"	p. 158
Notes	p. 173
Bibliography	p. 181
Index	p. 219
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