Anderson Review

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Book Reviews 209

Marx and the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-WesternSocieties. By kevin b. anderson. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 2010. 336 pp. $66.00 (cloth); $22.50 (paper and e-book).

Marxs writings and Marxism have had a tumultuous fate in West-ern academia. Scholars revered Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s, whensocial history was booming, but since the 1980s, they reproach Marx-ism from a number of different perspectives. We could explain the shiftin attitudes toward Marxism in reference to an array of social causes,including the shift from a fordist to a neo-liberal mode of capitalism,which instigated a crisis in and the eventual fall of the Soviet bloc,the emergence of market capitalism in China, a dynamic increase in

the growth rates of various non-European nation-states, and a globaldefeat of leftist politics. In the wake of this defeat, numerous theoriesattempted to replace Marxism as theories for the left, including post-structuralism, cultural studies, subaltern studies, postcolonialism. Post-structuralists rebuked Marxist epistemology, contending that Marx-ists were wedded to positivistic notions of science, and postcolonialtheorists claimed that Marxism used the scientific model to promotea Eurocentric mode of development. Influenced by Maoism, postcolo-nial theorists contended that Marxists failed to grasp the particularitiesof Third World and colonial development. These were scholars who

originated from or studied countries on the margins of the global capi-talist system, and they argued that Marx presupposed a unilinear modelof growth, which implied that Third World nations had to follow themodel of their European counterparts. Among other things, such criticsallude to Marxs inability to analyze adequately Third World nation-alism and anticolonialism, because both of these phenomena involvetaking seriously non-Western conditions.

Recently Marxist scholars have responded to charges of Eurocentri-cism,1 but Kevin B. Andersons Marx at the Margins makes a uniquecontribution by bringing to readers attention a vast array of recentlypublished works by Marx in which he discusses non-Western societ-ies and addresses questions of ethnicity and colonialism. At issue hereis particularly to what extent Marx advocated a unilinear modelof history. In other words, the question is: Did Marx believe that allregions of the world had to pass through the same stages of develop-

1 See Arif Dirliks essay, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age ofGlobal Capitalism, Critical Inquiry20, no. 2 (1994): 328356, and Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory:Classes, Nations and Literatures (London: Verso, 1994).


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210 journal of world history, march 2012

ment, theorized in terms of modes of production, such as slave, feudal,capitalist, and socialist? Another characteristic of the unilinear model

is that Marx valued the capitalist mode of production more highly thanprevious modes and believed that the various societies of the worldhad to pass through the capitalist mode of production before creatingsocialism.

Andersons book is divided into an introduction, six chapters, anda conclusion. The first chapter offers a new look at Marxs writingson the European impact on India, Indonesia, and China. Chapter 2deals with national emancipation and revolution in Russia and Poland.Chapters 3 and 4 discuss race, class, and slavery in the Civil War inthe United States and nationalism, class, and the labor movement in

Ireland, respectively. Chapter 5 examines how Marxs writings in theGrundrisse and Capital provide a theoretical foundation for the histori-cal writings discussed in the other chapters, and chapter 6 provides uswith a study of Marxs last writings on non-Western and precapitalistsocieties.

Taken as a whole, the various chapters of the book mobilize a vastarray of sources, some of which were only recently made available, toargue that Marx neither held that all nations had to pass through thesame stages nor believed that countries had to pass through capitalismin order to realize socialism. The two points are of course related but

not mutually entailing. In other words, from a Marxist perspective, thefirst claim, namely, that all countries must pass through the same stages,implies the second, namely, that all nations must experience capitalismbefore realizing socialism. However, the second does not imply the first,because it is possible that a country becomes capitalist through a logicimposed from the outside, such as through imperialism. In other words,from this perspective, without this external force it would be possiblefor some countries not to undergo capitalism, but then socialism wouldalso not be an issue. At one level, even without looking at new sources,it is clear that Marx did not believe that all countries had a uniformpath of growth. After all, the reason he developed an Asiatic mode ofproduction was precisely to show that social organization in Asia wasdifferent from what existed in Europe and in other parts of the world.Moreover, the Asiatic mode of production had the characteristic ofreproducing itself and being resistant to capitalist development. How-ever, on the standard interpretation of Marxism, imperialist nations,while motivated primarily by profit, had the unintended consequenceof breaking Asia out of stagnation and catapulting them into the worldof capitalist development, which was the condition for their becom-ing free. In other words, on the usual narrative, imperialism must be


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seen in a partially positive light, a type of necessary evil on the path todevelopment, a stepping stone on the way to socialism.

The novelty of Andersons book is precisely that it questions theabove interpretation of Marx and contends that Marx allowed for notonly multiple paths in the past, but also multiple paths toward social-ism. Here Marx is presented as a humanist for whom socialism providesa moral framework from which to evaluate the potential of varioussocial systems. Moreover, Marx spent much of his later life researchingthe histories of places around the world to expand his sense of the pos-sible. The Marx that emerges from this book is not one who grafts analready existing theory onto history, but one who creatively combinesrigorous social theory and meticulous empirical research to promote

revolutionary political action.In chapter 1, Colonial Encounters in the 1850s: The EuropeanImpact on India, Indonesia, and China, Anderson confronts EdwardSaids famous criticism of Marx as Eurocentric and offers an alterna-tive reading. In his enormously influential Orientalism2 Said based hisjudgment on an article that Marx wrote in 1853, The British Rulein India, which was Marxs first major publication on a non-Westernsociety. Said took Marx to task for judging that the British destruc-tion of previous communities was a precondition for real social revo-lution. Anderson concedes that there are elements of Eurocentrism

in Marxs above-mentioned text, and in particular two problematicideas: (1) that the various countries are destined to follow the pathof Europe, namely capitalist development, and (2) that Britain repre-sented a higher civilization. These two points are interrelated, since ifone accepts a grand developmental narrative of history and places capi-talism above non-Western modes of production, then one would haveto conclude that capitalist culture is also more advanced than that ofprecapitalist societies.

Anderson contends that Marx reworked his ideas about the non-Western world in other writings published shortly after British Rule inIndia. He argues that although Chinese (and Indian) walls continueto be battered down by what Marx sill evidently considered to be theprogressive effects of world trade and even colonial conquest, peoplefrom within non-Western societies are now credited with the poten-tial of throwing off the English yoke altogether and self-starting theregeneration of their societies and cultures. This regeneration wouldnot, however, any more than the struggle of the Western classes, be

2 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).


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aimed at a return to the precapitalist past. It would retain the achieve-ments of capitalist modernity (p. 24).

This is a crucial passage, since it shows that on Andersons reading,Marx has a multilinear vision not only of various societies precapitalistpasts, but also of their path to a postcapitalist future. His vision is notrelativist, since socialism, as a goal that stems from the logic of humanemancipation remains the telos of history and it is possible to drawon different resources to attain this goal. Moreover, because these pre-or noncapitalist countries have come into contact with the capitalistworld, it is possible for them to imagine a path that retains the achieve-ments of capitalist modernity, while at the same time creating a societythat moves beyond it.

In a number of non-Western countries, such as China, Japan, andIndia, intellectuals often expressed this desire to retain the achieve-ments of capitalism while surpassing it. Many Maoists clung to thishope as they combated imperialism and what they called semi-feudal-ism, while hoping to find a path to socialism. However, Anderson mustanswer the question of whether there is basis in Marxs mature theoret-ical work to make such claims. He attempts to respond to this questionin chapter 5, From the Grundrisse to Capital: Multilinear Themes.

In support of a new multilinear interpretation of Marx, Ander-son reexamines the somewhat understudied French edition of Marx,

which was the last edition that Marx personally prepared for pub-lication (p. 173). At issue here is the difference between Marx andEngels, which Marxists have been discussing for a number of decades.3Anderson provides textual evidence to suggest that the French editionwas less linear than the German and English editions, many of whichwere edited by Engels. For example, a famous passage in the preface tothe 1867 German edition ofCapital reads, The country that is moredeveloped industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image ofits own future (p. 177, italics in the original). This passage suggests agrand narrative of development, which Marxs critics never grow tired

3 For example, in the 1970s Japanese scholar Marxists, such as Mochizuki Seiji, con-trasted Marx and Engels in order to develop what he claimed was Marxs original theory ofcivil society. See Mochizuki Seiji, 0DUXNXVXUHNLVKLULRQQRNHQN\[A Study of Marxs Theoryof History] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973). Mochizuki stresses that Marxs use of conceptssuch as the Asiatic mode of production showed that he had a multilinear model of develop-ment, but he nonetheless stresses that capitalism and civil society are the conditions for thepossibility of socialism. A number of scholars have written about the difference betweenMarx and Engels in English. See for example, Christopher J. Arthur, ed., Engels Today:Centenary Appreciation (London: Macmillan, 1996).


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of criticizing. However, Anderson points out that in the French edi-tion, the passage read, The country that is more developed industri-

ally only shows, to those that follow it on the industrial path, the image ofits future (p. 178, italics in the original). Notice that in the Frenchversion, he excluded countries, such as India and Russia, which hadnot yet embarked on the industrial path. Anderson argues that this isbecause he had come into contact with Russian revolutionaries whohad read Capital and asked Marx whether Russia had to pass throughthe same stages as had England (p. 180). As is well known, Marx wroteto Vera Zasulich and other Russian revolutionaries saying that Rus-sians could draw on their particular forms of community and possiblybypass capitalism.

Anderson has made a major contribution to Marxist scholarship bypointing out the extent to which Marx did not develop a universal the-ory of history. This is important because even today there are Marxistswho discuss Marxs historical materialism as a universal theory of his-tory. However, more controversially, Anderson also argues that whenMarx rejected a stage theory of history, he also gave up the idea thatsocialism must develop out of the contradictions of capitalism. This isa point that most Marxists today would not accept, and Anderson hasperhaps saved for a later work how one could square the claim thatsome countries could possibly avoid capitalism and develop socialism

with his theory in Capital about how socialism becomes a possibility asrelative-surplus-value, large-scale industry, and a host of other changesemerge. Anderson suggests that multilinear history implies multiplepaths to socialism and hence must face the question of whether thesesocialisms are qualitatively similar and whether they have a social basis.By claiming that noncapitalist countries that confront capitalism canretain the achievements of capitalism while surpassing it, Andersonhas perhaps separated social and intellectual mediation because hereachievements of capitalism include the humanist ideals, such as free-dom and equality, which are not present in previous societies. But onemust ask what was or is the social base of these ideas in countries thatencounter capitalism from the outside. Moreover, while it is impor-tant to note multiple paths in a precapitalist world, in a world of capi-talist expansion, regions with lower levels of productivity that attemptto define alternative paths will inevitably be confronted by capitalistcompetition. Once they face capitalist competition, they will be forcedto mimic aspects of capitalist factory organization, if not reproduceanother form of capitalism. This is arguably what happened in the caseof the Soviet Union and Communist China, and today there are fewplaces, if any, around the world that are not capitalist. So perhaps the


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task for the future is, in addition to finding resources on the outsideof capitalism, to discover political possibilities to negate or rather to

sublate (aufheben) capitalism from within. Andersons book is impor-tant precisely because it forces us to ask whether uneven developmentcould lead to a different future and thus hopefully will open a new fieldof research in the study of Marx and capital.4 It should definitely berequired reading for people who are interested in Marxism, critics ofEurocentrism, and the possibility of a future beyond capitalism.

viren murthyUniversity of Ottawa

Reforming the World: The Creation of Americas Moral Empire.By ian tyrrell. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,2010. 336 pp. $35.00 (cloth and e-book).

Princeton University Presss latest addition to its America in theWorld series provides further evidence of the depth and reach of U.S.culture beyond its own borders and of how the myriad experiences ofAmericans abroad impacted domestic policy and culture in the decadessurrounding the turn of the twentieth century. In Reforming the World,

Ian Tyrrell, preeminent scholar in the field of transnational U.S. his-tory, argues that while pundits and policy makers might easily debatethe current realities of U.S. empire in terms of economy and politics,the nations export of Protestant morals indeed shaped the course ofAmericas cultural expansion and its formal imperial designs from1880 to 1930. The careers and actions of American moral reformers, acohort that included missionaries, fundraisers, and temperance advo-cates, created important nexuses at which American Protestant evan-gelical culture intersected with colonialism, the growing hegemony ofcapitalism, and the politics of race and anti-imperialism both at homeand abroad. Tyrrells emphasis on informal networks of moral reform-ers that transcended national and colonial borders and cultures andattempted to create a global moral order rooted in Protestant values,forces scholars of both U.S. empire and religion in America to rethinkthe connections between the two.

4 For another recent attempt to tackle this issue, see Harry Harootunian, Who NeedsPostcolonialism? A Reply to Linder, Radical Philosophy164 (NovemberDecember 2010):3844.

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