ABSTRACT
This volume considers the confluence of World History and historical materialism, with the following guiding question in mind: given developments in the field of historical materialism concerned with the intersection of race, gender, labour, and class, why is it that within the field of World History, historical materialism has been marginalized, precisely as World History orients toward transnational socio-cultural phenomenon, micro-studies, or global histories of networks? Answering this question requires thinking, in an inter-related manner, about both the development of World History as a discipline, and the place of economic determinism in historical materialism. This book takes the position that historical materialism (as applied to the field of World History) needs to be more open to the methodological diversity of the materialist tradition and to refuse narrowly deterministic frameworks that have led to marginalization of materialist cultural analysis in studies of global capitalism. At the same time, World History needs to be more self-critical of the methodological diversity it has welcomed through a largely inclusionary framework that allows the material to be considered separately from cultural, social, and intellectual dimensions of global processes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 1|17 pages
Material Matters
part 1|56 pages
The “Blind Spots” of Historical Materialism
chapter 3|16 pages
Language, State, and Global Capitalism
chapter 5|17 pages
“As Its Foundations Totter”
part 2|76 pages
World History and Interconnectivity
part A|42 pages
Spatial Categories and Norms of Interconnectedness
chapter 7|26 pages
Local Struggles, Transnational Connections
part B|33 pages
Denaturalizing Economic Thought
chapter 8|17 pages
Perpetual Peace, Technology, and Effeminacy
part 3|39 pages
Dialectical Inquiry, Historical Materialism, and the Localities of World History