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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
I read most of it and learned what I needed to learn at the time.
"The history of agrarian capitalism, and everything that followed from it, should make it clear that wherever market imperatives regulate the economy and govern social reproduction, there will be no escape from exploitation."
Eye-opener. Een goed boek om je uit het Amerikaanse narratief van Kapitalisme-verheerlijking te trekken.
Eye-opener. Een goed boek om je uit het Amerikaanse narratief van Kapitalisme-verheerlijking te trekken.
I wish I'd read this during my graduate degree. It makes the history of capitalist development make so much more sense.
I was looking through some of the low rating reviews and it seems like peoples’ main complaint of the book is that some text can be hard to understand. While i understand this sentiment, i truly believe that if you stick through and really try to analyze and understand what the author is trying to convey then this book will be an eye opening experience. If you truly want to get an answer for the question, how did capitalism begin? then this is the book for you.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
The style of the author makes a complicated topic more accessible. She starts by exploring the most common explanations of the origins of capitalism made by pro- and anti-capitalists. She shows the strengths and failures of each explanation. And then moves to set her own by following the rise of capitalism from countryside-England. The chapter about imperialism and how it connects to capitalism was valuable.
The author tends to repeat some points made earlier to remind the reader of them. But sometimes those repetitions bog down the flow and makes it harder to parse the goal of the current chapter. Though I have to admit that the most important points were repeated quite often and I would be unlikely to forget them anymore.
The author tends to repeat some points made earlier to remind the reader of them. But sometimes those repetitions bog down the flow and makes it harder to parse the goal of the current chapter. Though I have to admit that the most important points were repeated quite often and I would be unlikely to forget them anymore.
The Origin of Capitalism does a phenomenal job of charting out the history and course of capitalism, describing in great detail the specific conditions that gave rise to capitalism in England (and explains why similar trends did not emerge elsewhere). Critically, Wood makes the strong case that capitalism isn't the inevitable natural outcome of lifted social and economic restraints holding back "free market forces." Rather, capitalism is a peculiar arrangement of social property relations upon which the masses come to rely on for necessities and, as such, their very existence. It does a great job of historically contextualizing the origins of the system (and characterizing capitalism as a rupture in typical human relations) but it falls short in its inaccessibility: this was a challenging and at times dense text that would be most readily digested by history academics, not ordinary interested individuals. A similar but more readable text would reach larger masses and promulgate her ideas further.
A thrilling, original thesis only somewhat bogged down by the constant repetition of its subpoints throughout the book. Wish that there was a further exploration of the Enlightenment/modernity chapter but the economic chapters are very well conveyed.
informative
medium-paced