A Social History of Western Political Thought

Immensely impressive, bold and erudite. Meiksins Wood‘s conclusions are undeniably nuanced, challenging and important. This book ought to be compulsory reading for us all.

This book is clearly written, incisively argued, and immensely informative.

A notable book, wide-ranging and perceptive. Wood addresses the heartland of the historiography of political thought from Machiavelli to Rousseau, the territory of its most successful recent practitioners.

The writing is so supple and accessible, and the argument so persuasive, it's like watching a cloudy mixture of ideas being turned into a clear solution.

Wood was an extraordinarily rigorous and imaginative thinker, someone who breathed life into Marxist political theory and made it speak—not to just to me but to many others—at multiple levels: historical, theoretical, political.