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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