Modes of Production and Archaeology - by Robert M Rosenswig Hardcover

About the Book

This volume challenges the historical materialistic, non-capitalist modes that are used by archaeologists as not all that useful and instead considers how social labor is organized to transform nature into culturally refined and useful resources and how this can either maintain or change a culture. Rather than describe what a society is, using the theoretical framework of Marx and materialism, a mode of production approach explores what a society does in a more dynamic sense.

Book Synopsis

"For more than a century, scholars have critiqued, misinterpreted, and bickered about Marx's concept of mode of production. Modes of Production and Archaeology cuts through the dense and thorny intellectual thicket that grew up from these debates. The book presents an easily understood discussion of Marx's concepts and demonstrates how archaeologists can analyze modes of production to explain long term patterns in cultural change."-Randall McGuire, author of Archaeology as Political Action "Shows clearly how historical materialist ideas and concepts are productive in developing the theory and practice of archaeology."-Robert Chapman, author of Archaeologies of Complexity "Covers a huge range of ground and brings together ideas and analyses in a way that has not really been done yet in archaeology."-Colin Grier, Washington State University This volume explains how archaeologists can use Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' mode of production concept to study long-term patterns in human society. Modes of production describes how labor is organized to create surplus which is then used for political purposes. This type of analysis allows archaeologists to compare and contrast peoples across distant continents and eras, from hunter-gatherer groups to early agriculturalists to nation-states. Presenting a range of different perspectives from researchers working in a wide variety of societies and time periods, this volume clearly demonstrates why historical materialism matters to the field of archaeology.

About the Author

Robert M. Rosenswig, associate professor of anthropology at the University at Albany, SUNY, is the author of The Beginnings of Mesoamerican Civilization: Inter- Regional Interaction and the Olmec and coeditor of Early New World Monumentality. Jerimy J. Cunningham is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Lethbridge.