Wednesday, 24 August 2016


RE-READING READING CAPITAL?

          This despatch was phoned in by our far-flung correspondent Jack Blanchard in Paris, as recorded:
          “Hi Monty. It’s me.
          “Hello Jack. How are things down there?
          “Fine. I’m at Père Lachaise Cimetière, resting place for such notables as Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. I’ve just seen an exhumation that could be the discovery of the century!
          “Gosh, Jack, what’s that?
          “It’s when you dig up old bodies. But listen, Monty, this isn’t a body – it’s a book!  And not just any book: Reading Capital, by Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar and a raft of others. Based on lectures they gave at the École Normale Supérieure back in 1962, it came out in English in the early Seventies.
          “Wow!
          “Someone’s just told me Verso signed up immediately to have it re-issued in London, retailing at £30.00!
          “Amazing. And at a price that’s just right for Marxists! Thanks, Jack.”
As it happens, Reading Capital features in my (Philosophy of History page) article “The Historical Materialist and the Concept of History’. When I wrote it I never thought Althusser et al would ever be made freshly available again: shows how wrong I was.  Indeed, I referred to my study at the time as a look into postmodern “archaeology”. So before investing £30 maybe you ought to read my article. It could save you money!
          Reading another work that could save you the money is Bryan D Palmer’s Descent Into Discourse (1990) which is the best demolition job on poststructuralism and postmodernism I know. (Althusser was a structuralist, really, but he started the whole “theory” thing off in the Left back in the Sixties.)


Where is this Leading? (Part Two) will be on the way shortly….

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