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Marxism and the City

Online ISBN:
9780191601910
Print ISBN:
9780198279242
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
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Marxism and the City

Ira Katznelson
Ira Katznelson

Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science

New School for Social Science Research, New York
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Published online:
20 January 2005
Published in print:
2 September 1993
Online ISBN:
9780191601910
Print ISBN:
9780198279242
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Defeated in the East and discredited in the West, Marxism has broken down as an ideology and as a guide to governance. However, for all its flaws, it remains an important tool for understanding and raising questions about key aspects of modern life. In Marxism and the City, Ira Katznelson critically assesses the scholarship on cities that has developed within Marxism in the past quarter century to show how some of the most important weaknesses in Marxism as a social theory can be remedied by forcing it to engage seriously with cities and spatial concerns. He argues that such a Marxism still has a significant contribution to make to the discussion of historical questions such as the transition from feudalism to a world composed of capitalist economies and nation‐states and the acquiescence of the western working classes to capitalism. Katznelson demonstrates how a Marxism that embraces complexity and is open to engagement with other social–theoretical traditions can illuminate understanding of cities and of the patterns of class and group formation that have characterized urban life in the West.

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