Re: [Marxism] Re: Postmarxism/Foucault Query Help

["acpollack2@xxxxxxxx" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

Essential book. Based on an MR issue; search their site and you should find 
some of the articles online.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/idoh.htm
New and Expanded Essays from a Special Issue of Monthly Review
IN DEFENSE OF HISTORY
Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda

edited by Ellen Meiksins Wood
and John Bellamy Foster


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?A hard-hitting critique... In Defense of Historybrings together fine essays 
that speak directly to the underlying assumptions of postmoderism and offer a 
stunning critique of its usefulness in both understanding and critiquing the 
current historical epoch.?
? CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

?We live in an era that has made In Defense of History indispensable; an era 
that has delegitimized the practice of sifting through the past for clues about 
the present in a bid to improve the future.... It deserves an audience of old 
believers and young skeptics alike.?
? SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

Are we now in an age of "postmodernity"? Even as some on the right have 
proclaimed the "end of history" or the final triumph of capitalism, we are told 
by some left intellectuals that the "modern" epoch has ended, that the 
"Enlightenment project" is dead, that all the old verities and ideologies have 
lost their relevance, that the old principles of rationality no longer apply, 
and so on. Yet what is striking about the current diagnosis of postmodernity is 
that it has so much in common with older pronouncements of death, both radical 
and reactionary versions. What has ended, apparently, is not so much another, 
different epoch but the same one all over again.

In response, the best of today's new intellectuals on the left are returning to 
historical materialism, to class analysis. This collection reflects that move, 
pinning postmodernism in its place and time. It exposes the erroneous bases of 
"pomo" premises, by identifying the real problems to which the current 
intellectual fashions offer false or no solutions. In doing so, the 
contributors challenge the limits imposed on action and resistance by those who 
see liberating "new times" in the contradictions of contemporary capitalism. 
What is being celebrated in the postmodern agenda, argues Ellen Meiksins Wood, 
is the prosperity of the consumerist 1960s reflected in a distorting mirror. 
The instability and economic polarization of the 1990s demand a solid critique 
of the conditions of capitalism, not endless reexaminations of their 
"meanings"; this is the standard and goal of In Defense of History.


Contents & Contributors
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS THE POSTMODERN AGENDA?
Ellen Meiksins Wood

PART 2: POSTMODERNISM AND INTELLECTUALS
WHERE DO POSTMODERNISTS COME FROM?
Terry Eagleton

LANGUAGE, HISTORY, AND CLASS STRUGGLE
David McNally

THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL STUDIES
Francis Mulhern

CULTURE, NATIONALISM, AND THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS
Aijaz Ahmad Interviewed I

OLD POSITIONS/NEW NECESSITIES: HISTORY, CLASS,
AND MARXIST METANARRATIVE
Bryan D. Palmer

AGAINST SOCIAL DE(CON)STRUCTION OF SCIENCE:
CAUTIONARY TALES FROM THE THIRD WORLD
Meera Nanda

PART 3: POSTMODERNISM AND MOVEMENTS
ISSUES OF CLASS AND CULTURE
Aijaz Ahmad Interviewed II

THE MIRROR OF RACE: POSTMODERNISM
AND THE CELEBRATION OF DIFFERENCE
Kenan Malik

POSTMODERNISM, FEMINISM, AND MARX:
NOTES FROM THE ABYSS
Carol A. Stabile

MARX AND THE ENVIRONMENT
John Bellamy Foster

NORTHERN INTELLECTUALS AND THE EZLN
Daniel Nugent

FIVE THESES ON ACTUALLY EXISTING MARXISM
Fredric Jameson

PART 5: AFTERWORD
IN DEFENSE OF HISTORY
John Bellamy Foster


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About the Editors
ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD is the author of numerous books including The Retreat from 
Class (1986, winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize), The Origin of 
Capitalism (1999) The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (1991), and Democracy 
Against Capitalism (1995), co-author with Neal Wood of A Trumpet of Sedition 
(1997), and co-editor of In Defense of History (1997), and Rising from the 
Ashes?: Labor in the Age of "Global" Capitalism (1999).

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He 
is the author of The Vulnerable Planet (1999) and Marx's Ecology (2000) and 
co-editor of In Defense of History (1996).



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