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Description
Davidson explores classic themes in historical materialism as he explains: the moments of transition from the dominance of one mode of production to another; the process of social revolution which accompany these transitions; and the problem of nationalism, both as a theoretical challenge to Marxism's capacity for historical explanation and as a practical obstacle to socialist consciousness.
Author Bios

Neil Davidson (1957-2020) lectured in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Glasgow. He authored The Origins of Scottish Nationhood (2000), Discovering the Scottish Revolution (2003), for which he was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize, How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? (2012), Holding Fast to an Image of the Past (2014) and We Cannot Escape History (2015). Davidson was on the editorial boards of rs21 and the Scottish Left Project website, and was a member of the Radical Independence Campaign.

More Info

Publication date: May 27, 2014

Table of Contents
A Note on the Cover Illustrations
Preface

1.Tom Nairn and the Inevitability of Nationalism
2.Marx and Engels on the Scottish Highlands
3.The Prophet, His Biographer and the Watchtower: Isaac Deutscher’s Trotsky
4. Alasdair MacIntyre as a Marxist
5. Reimagined Communities: Benedict Anderson after 20 Years
6. Walter Benjamin and the Classical Marxist Tradition
7. Shock and Awe: Naomi Klein on Neoliberalism
8. Antonio Gramsci’s Reception in Scotland
9. Eric Hobsbawm’s Unanswered Question
10. The Adventures of Adam Smith in the 21st Century

Blog Posts

Haymarket Books are deeply saddened by the death of Neil Davidson, one of the most important Marxist thinkers of his generation, a true working class intellectual, and a socialist who fought with extraordinary energy for a better world. Here, we gather a selection of tributes.

With both the Labour Party and the Conservatives having launched their manifestos in recent days, Britain’s snap general election is gathering momentum. Jeremy Corbyn’s program has been widely described as Labour’s most radical and left-wing for decades; meanwhile, the Tories continue their sharp shift to the right under Theresa May. Added to this, Brexit and renewed calls for Scottish independence mean that the election is taking place in a context of profound change and uncertainty. Haymarket Books' Duncan Thomas interviewed Neil Davidson, British socialist and author of How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?, to glean some meaning from the madness.


Credit: Loz Pycock

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