Pristine culture of capitalism : a historical essay on old regimes and modern states
- London : Verso, 2015
- x, 200 p. ; 24 cm
- Verso world history series .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
In this lively and wide-ranging book, Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that what is supposed to have epitomized bourgeois modernity, especially the emergence of a “modern” state and political culture in Continental Europe, signaled the persistence of pre-capitalist social property relations. Conversely, the absence of a “modern” state and political discourse in England testified to the presence of a well-developed capitalism. The fundamental flaws in the British economy are not just the symptoms of arrested development but the contradictions of the capitalist system itself. Britain today, Wood maintains, is the most thoroughly capitalist culture in Europe. Publisher.
9781784781033
Great Britain Capitalism Political science Politics and government Europe Absolutism Ancien regima Aristocracies Bourgeois revolution Civil war Clark,J.C.D. Democracy England Feudalism French revolution Italy Locke,John Monarchy Sovereignty Thatcherism Urban culture Social change