Historical Materialism: Revisiting the Fundamental Concepts

First published in French, this book by Tony Andréani, a prolific French Marxist scholar, summarises decades of research on Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism.

Written to further debate among scholars and beyond, Andréani develops the fundamental concepts of the Marxist theory of history as they apply to any society, particularly the so-called economic concepts, in their opposition to neo-classical theory and to reductive readings common among Marxist authors. He later discusses the theory of modes of production to then sketch an analysis of the course of history, which is the subject of much debate among Marxist historians. In the latter parts of this book, the reader will learn more about the origin of inequalities, historical dialectics, and the perspectives of socialism.

The publication of Matérialisme Historique: Les concepts fondamentaux revisités (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2022) in an English translation with updates will be welcomed by scholars familiar with the French edition and eager to have Tony Andréani’s original vision on the basic concepts of historical materialism made available to Anglophone audiences.

Tony Andréani, PhD in philosophy, is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Paris VIII. His major works include De la société à l’histoire (2 volumes, Paris: Editions Meridiens-Klincksieck, 1989), Discours sur l’égalité parmi les hommes (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1993), Un être de raison, critique de l’homo Oeconomicus (Paris: Editions Syllepse, 2000), Socialisme est (a)venir, (2 volumes, Paris: Editions Syllepse, 2001 and 2004), and Ten Essays for a 21st Century Socialism (London: Routledge, 2025).