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The Origin of Capitalism, by Ellen Meiksins Wood. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999. 138 pp. $30.00 cloth. ISBN: 1-58367-007-6. $13.00 paper. ISBN: 1-58367-000-9.
Explaining the genesis of capitalism was once a central concern for classical social theory, but in some circles the question itself is now in question. Does not the question assume as a key to world history an encompassing capitalist "system"? This little book reminds us how the grand question of capitalism's origins still haunts contemporary theories of rationality and culture. Above all, it shows how the notion of a capitalist "system" works on the ground to make sense of comparative evidence about social developments in early modern Europe.
Wood is merciless and convincing in her argument that many social theorists, including Marxists, paradoxically have dehistoricized capitalism in their very histories of it. They try to explain its origin in terms of the political unshackling of commercial...