Ellen Meiksins Wood

I'm reading Ellen Meiksins Wood's, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism.

I picked up a copy at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena a couple of weekends ago (when I was at the Politicon convention).

She's also the author of The Pristine Culture of Capitalism: A Historical Essay on Old Regimes and Modern States, a topic of longtime interest to me in political science. One of my favorite books from graduate school is Perry Anderson's, Lineages of the Absolutist State.

Anderson defined Marxist historical-sociology and the state-building approach in political science. The work of Meiksins Wood is very closely related in terms of establishing historical change as a site of theoretical contestation. I enjoy reading this stuff.

Also from Meiksins Wood, The Retreat From Class: A New True Socialism.