The question of the Asiatic mode of production : towards a new Marxist historiography

Abstract

This thesis represents the first book-length account in the English language of Marx's concept of the Asiatic mode of production and of its implications for historical materialism. It examines the origins of the concept, its place and functions within the work of Marx and Engels and of subsequent Marxists, and its relevance to contemporary Marxism. In doing so, it takes into account not only the intellectual history of the concept but its political history; and not only its theoretical implications for historical materialism but its political implications for the Marxist approach to the non-Westem world.