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Donald L. Donham

History, Power, Ideology

Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology

With a New Preface and a Foreword by Eric Wolf
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$21.95, £12.95 paperback
978-0-520-21337-1
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259 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 25 b/w photographs, 3 maps, 10 figures
June 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: Anthropology; African Studies; Philosophy; Social Theory

Is Marxism a reflection of the conceptual system it fights against, rather than a truly comprehensive approach to human history? Drawing on recent work in anthropology, history, and philosophy, Donald Donham confronts this problem in analyzing a radically different social order: the former Maale kingdom of southern Ethiopia.

"Every once in a while there appears a book that . . . opens up new ways of inquiring into the ways of the world. Donald Donham has written such a book. The style is quiet and judicious, but the effect is stunning. . . . In putting inherited partisan approaches to the test of explaining the realities of Maale society and culture, Donham enriches anthropology and imparts new vigor to the analytical Marxian traditions. History, Power, Ideology embodies a major accomplishment."—From the Foreword
Donald L. Donham is Professor of Anthropology at Emory University and author of Work and Power in Maale, Ethiopia (1994). Eric R. Wolf is author of Europe and the People without History (California, 1982).