Karl Marx, Anthropologist

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.

Table of Contents:
Preface Chronology Introduction Polemics, Caveats, and Standpoints Organization of the Book Ch. 1 The Enlightenment and Anthropology Early Enlightenment Thought The World Historicized The New Anthropology of the Enlightenment Rousseau's Historical-Dialectical Anthropology The Scottish Historical Philosophers The Institutionalization of Anthropology Kant's Pragmatic Anthropology Herder's Historical-Dialectical Anthropology Göttingen: Beyond "Anthropology for Doctors and Philosophers"Hegel's Critical-Historical Anthropology Ch.2 Marx's Anthropology What are Human Beings? The Corporeal Organization of Human Beings "Ensembles of Social Relations" and Human Beings as Social Individuals History Truth and Praxis Ch. 3 Human Natural Beings Charles Darwin and the Development of Modern Evolutionary Theory Darwin's Metaphors and Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection The Problems of Variation and Inheritance The Modern Synthesis and Beyond Human Natural Beings: Bodies That Walk, Talk, Make Tools,and Have Culture Engels's "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" Fossils and Proteins Demography and Population Structure Marx on the Naturalization of Social Inequality Ch. 4 Anthropology, History, and Social Formation Marx's Historical-Dialectical Conceptual Framework Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production Primitive Communism The Asiatic Mode of Production and the Slavonic Transition The Ancient Mode of Production The Germanic Mode of Production The Feudal Mode of Production Societies and Cultures Pre-Capitalist Societies: Limited, Local, and Vital Human History Is Messy Ch. 5 Capitalism and the Anthropology of the Modern World The Transition to Capitalism and its Development The Articulation of Modes of Production Property, Power, and Capitalist States Ch. 6 Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century Social Relations and the Formation of Social Individuals Alienation Domination, Exploitation, and Forms of Social Hierarchy Resistance and Protest Anthropology: "The Study of People in Crisis by People in Crisis"Notes Bibliography

About the Author :
Tom Patterson is 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).

Review :
'This is a timely reminder of both the Enlightenment background and holistic nature of Marx' anthropology, which concerns not merely understanding classical industrial capitalism but also such diverse issues as the modern age of empire, human origins and non-Western political systems'. Dr Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, University of Cambridge