Eminent Italian historian Giovanni Levi once notably remarked that “no one is a Marxist anymore,” pointing to a paradox in Italian cultural history. While what is called "Marxism" was supposedly hegemonic over Italian culture, and especially history writing, for decades in the postwar period, it then seems to have suddenly disappeared. This study questions such a vision of a monolithic and hegemonic Marxism. It starts from the most effective anecdote to all ideologising narratives—that is, research into the texts themselves. It sees the Marxist historiography of the post-1945 period as a "history in the making," in which references to Marxian theory were a fundamental factor driving historiographical innovation. This allows the book to bring to light a highly original experience in the development of historiography, based on the long Italian tradition of reflection on historical knowledge.
Author(s): Paolo Favilli
Series: Marx, Engels, And Marxisms
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2021
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 364
Tags: Political Theory; Political Philosophy; Political Sociology; Political History
Titles Published
Titles Forthcoming
Praise for Marxism and Historiography
Contents
1 Introduction
1 The Present Moment
1.1 Politics in the Guise of History
1.2 The Crisis of Objectifying Methodologies
2 … From Afar
3 in the Absence of Labour Movement History
2 ‘Historiographical Marxism’: Preliminary Questions
1 The Thorny Question of the ‘centrality’ of the Economic Sphere
2 Which Analytical Truth?
3 Long-Term Journeys, Underground Journeys
1 History and Economics in Antonio Labriola’s Lesson
1.1 The Paradigm Shift in Political Economy
1.2 An Economics for Historical Use, and Structural History
2 History and Economics in the “Italian Tradition”
2.1 The Eclecticism of the Battle Over Method
2.2 The Battle Over Method and Its Effects on Historiographical Practice: The Case of Ancient History
3 The Long-Term Lineaments of the Battle Over Method
3.1 Gino Luzzatto’s Lesson
3.2 Intersecting Lineaments: Dal Pane, Sereni, Morandi
4 Delio Cantimori’s Problematic Lesson in Marxism
1 Was Cantimori a Marxist?
2 Distinctions
3 Historical Method, the Political Dimension and ‘non-Actuality’
5 A Common Innovating Drive, in Italy and in Europe
1 Between Scholarship and Commitment
2 The Common Materials of the ‘history Under Construction’
6 A Programme for the ‘New History’
1 Ruptures and Continuities with the ‘Italian Tradition’
1.1 ‘Croceanism’ and ‘Historicism’
1.2 The Social Sciences
2 History and Politics: Further ‘Distinctions’
7 Economic History as Social History
1 ‘History as Science’
2 ‘… the Science of History’
3 Historical-Materialist Initiatives
8 The History of Capitalism
1 Capitalism as a Historical Problem
1.1 Early Tests in the Italian Context
2 Agriculture and the Development of Capitalism
2.1 The Question of ‘Models’
2.2 The Model of the Italian ‘Transition’
2.3 The Italian Industrialisation Model
9 Conclusions: The ‘Hundred Flowers’ of the 1970s
Index
