Few questions of history have as many contemporary political implications as this deceptively simple one: how did capitalism come to be? In this clarifying work, Ellen Meiksins Wood refutes most existing accounts of the origin of capitalism, which, she argues, fail to recognize capitalism's distinctive attributes as a social system, making it seem a culmination of a natural human inclination to sell and buy. Wood begins with searching assessments of classical thinkers ranging from Adam Smith to Max Weber. She then explores the great Marxist debates among writers such as Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson, and E. P. Thompson. She concludes with her own account of capitalism's agrarian origin, challenging the association of capitalism with cities, the identification of "capitalist" with "bourgeois," and conceptions of modernity and postmodernity derived from those assumptions. Only with a proper understanding of capitalism's beginning, Wood concludes, can we imagine the possibility of it ending.

Capitalism makes possible a new form of domination by purely economic means, argues Ellen Meiksins Wood. So, surely, even the most seasoned White House hawk would prefer to exercise global hegemony in this way, without costly colonial entanglements. Yet, as Wood powerfully demonstrates, the economic empire of capital has also created a new unlimited militarism. By contrasting the new imperialism to historical forms such as the Roman and Spanish empire, and by tracing the development of capitalist imperialism back to the English domination of Ireland and on the British Empire in America and India, Wood shows how today's capitalist empire, a global economy administered by local states, has come tom spawn a new military doctrine of war without end, in purpose or time.

Only a renewed historical materialism can accomplish the task. Meiksins Wood redefines the tradition's basic concepts and theory of history to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. This, she argues, is inimical to democracy-a concept she interrogates in both its ancient and modern forms, before asking how it can overcome its present limits.

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory. She traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history—a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wodd argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St Paul and St Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Citizens to Lords offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have indelibly stamped our modern world.

"The formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment have all been attributed to the 'early modern' period. Nearly everything about this point in history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood has written a vivid history of the time's canonical thinkers, presenting their thoughts not simply as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day."--Page 4 of cover

Deals with capitalism. Weaving together economic and political history with the history of ideas, this book ranges across a broad spectrum of debates, from the 'Nairn-Anderson theses' to the contribution of J C D Clark and Alan Macfarlane, and over a wide variety of topics.

"The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that, despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society, the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen, juridically and politically independent, accounts for much that is remarkable in Athenian political institutions and culture. From a survey of historical writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the focus of which distorted later debates, Wood goes on to take issue with influential arguments, such as those of G.E.M. de Ste Croix, about the importance of slavery in agricultural production. The social, political and cultural influence of the peasant-citizen is explored in a way which questions some of the most cherished conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography" --Page 4 of cover

The political thought of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle defended and justified the values and way of life of the declining and decaying landed aristocracy in opposition to Athenian democracy and the craftsmen, traders and labourers upon which it increasingly rested. Although the Socratics recognized and condemned aristocratic regeneration, they hoped that the outlook and conduct of the nobility could be revitalized so as once more to become the foundation of civic life in order to stem the levelling tide of democracy, the tyranny of the mob, and the vulgarity that they felt were endangering Greece and especially Athens. To be understood and appreciated fully, the classics of political theory must be viewed as basically ideological and much more closely and rigorously related to their social contexts than has usually been the case. The point of departure for this critique of the Socratics is a particular conception of the Greek polis and its significance for Western social organization, an interpretation differing from most standard treatments. Besides casting new light upon the political thought of the Socratics, this study should help to illuminate the aristocratic myth about the character of the demos which, immortalized by the Socratics, has been a cornerstone of anti-democratic ideology and social theory in the West ever since the ancient philosophers first recorded their fears of the 'mob'.