Description
This book is the result of a research project begun by the author in 1958 with the aim of answering two questions:
First, what is the rationality of the economic systems that appear and disappear throughout history-in other words, what is their hidden logic and the underlying necessity for them to exist, or to have existed?
Second, what are the conditions for a rational understanding of these systems-in other words, for a fully developed comparative economic science?
The field of investigation opened up by these two questions is vast, touching on the foundations of social reality and on how to understand them. The author, being a Marxist, sought the answers, as he writes, 'not in philosophy or by philosophical means, but in and through examining the knowledge accumulated by the sciences.' The stages of his journey from philosophy to economics and then to anthropology are indicated by the divisions of his book.
Godelier rejects, at the outset, any attempt to tackle the question of rationality or irrationality of economic science and of economic realities from the angle of an a priori idea, a speculative definition of what is rational. Such an approach can yield only, he feels, an ideological result. Rather, he treats the appearance and disappearance of social and economic systems in history as being governed by a necessity 'wholly internal to the concrete structures of social life.
An analysis of social and economic systems and why they appear and disappear throughout history
About the Author
Maurice Godelier is a world-renowned anthropologist. Among the many honours he has received are the CNRS Gold Medal and the Alexander von Humbolt prize. His major works include The Making of Great Men, Metamorphoses of Kinship, The Enigma of the Gift, In and Out of the West, and more recently Levi-Strauss: A Critical Study of His Thought.
Reviews
Engaging and intriguing ... Anthropology, it would seem, may yet return from the graveyard of structuralism to stir up some debate in the social sciences. * New Statesman *
Book Information
ISBN 9781781680254
Author Maurice Godelier
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 402g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 132mm * 28mm
First, what is the rationality of the economic systems that appear and disappear throughout history-in other words, what is their hidden logic and the underlying necessity for them to exist, or to have existed?
Second, what are the conditions for a rational understanding of these systems-in other words, for a fully developed comparative economic science?
The field of investigation opened up by these two questions is vast, touching on the foundations of social reality and on how to understand them. The author, being a Marxist, sought the answers, as he writes, 'not in philosophy or by philosophical means, but in and through examining the knowledge accumulated by the sciences.' The stages of his journey from philosophy to economics and then to anthropology are indicated by the divisions of his book.
Godelier rejects, at the outset, any attempt to tackle the question of rationality or irrationality of economic science and of economic realities from the angle of an a priori idea, a speculative definition of what is rational. Such an approach can yield only, he feels, an ideological result. Rather, he treats the appearance and disappearance of social and economic systems in history as being governed by a necessity 'wholly internal to the concrete structures of social life.
An analysis of social and economic systems and why they appear and disappear throughout history
About the Author
Maurice Godelier is a world-renowned anthropologist. Among the many honours he has received are the CNRS Gold Medal and the Alexander von Humbolt prize. His major works include The Making of Great Men, Metamorphoses of Kinship, The Enigma of the Gift, In and Out of the West, and more recently Levi-Strauss: A Critical Study of His Thought.
Reviews
Engaging and intriguing ... Anthropology, it would seem, may yet return from the graveyard of structuralism to stir up some debate in the social sciences. * New Statesman *
Book Information
ISBN 9781781680254
Author Maurice Godelier
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 402g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 132mm * 28mm
