8/14/2019 Tilly, Charles - Dimensions of the Historical Process by Leszek Nowak, 1992 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/tilly-charles-dimensions-of-the-historical-process-by-leszek-nowak-1992 1/4 Wesleyan University Dimensions of the Historical Process by Leszek Nowak Review by: Charles Tilly History and Theory, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 112-114 Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505297 . Accessed: 04/11/2013 21:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History and Theory. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 193.54.67.91 on Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:01:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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8/14/2019 Tilly, Charles - Dimensions of the Historical Process by Leszek Nowak, 1992
Dimensions of the Historical Process by Leszek NowakReview by: Charles TillyHistory and Theory, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 112-114Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History
and Theory.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 193.54.67.91 on Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:01:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
transformationalfor example,Habermas n historicalmaterialism, s discussedin Axel Honneth's paper); globalistic-civilizational-adaptivefor example,KrzysztofNiedzwiadek's aperon the modesof spiritualproduction ); nd
globalistic-conflictual-transformationalforexample,DickPelson a non-Hegelianconceptionof the newclass ).
Nowakuses he scheme oorganize is wholevolume.After hreegeneral apers
onanalyzing imensions f the historical rocess AndrzejKlawiter, ouisKries-berg, and I. C. Jarvie), he book proceeds o fourexamplesof the individual-
civilizational-transformationalpproach AxelHonneth;PiotrBuczkowski;jointpaperbyAdamBartoszek,EwaBogalska-Czajkowska,ndWaldemar zaj-kowski;and a final paperbyMadrzejMalkiewicz);our more contributionsl-
KrzysztofNiedzwiadek);nd a full sevenessaysunder he headingglobalistic-
conflictual-transformationalThomasSoderqvist,Dick Pels, Leszek Nowak,GrzegorzTomczak,MarekNiewiadomski, ndrzejFalkiewicz, nd heduo Katar-zynaPaprzycka nd LeszekNowak).The book as a wholehasno generalargu-
ment;it illustratesa taxonomy.
Disconcertingly,he assembledauthors gnorehistorians'mostcommonap-proachto theiranalyses,whichassumesdistinct ndividualswho have diverse
interestsndwhosestruggles roduceunstable daptationso environmentalon-ditions.NeitherNowaknor his fellow-authors xplainthat neglect.No doubtthe best explanationcomes from the omnipresence f Marxist houghtin the
Polish environmentwithinwhichmostof the authorsgrewup,and whichtheyare nowtryingto transform. n the book'snineteenpaperswe see a collectiveeffort o movebeyondMarxismwhileretaining Marxist enseof directionand
coherencenhistory.TheyexemplifyNowak'sownlong-term ffort o construct
anon-Marxist istoricalmaterialism.ndeed,most of thepapersgroupedundertheglobalistic-conflictual-transformationalubric eekexplicitly o forwardNo-wak'stheoreticalprogram.
Much of the effort,alas,consists of wordsabout wordsaboutwordsratherthan wordsabouthistory.No doubtexperiencedeaders f Historyand Theoryhavebuiltuptheirresistanceo high-levelphilosophizing.Confrontedwithsuchawordpile, owever, workinghistorian's eart inks.The bookoffersmore hanthreehundred agesostensiblydevoted o history hatcontainnot one sustained
discussionof a genuinehistorical ituation,not a singleactualhistorian's hesisormethod,and no body whatsoever f historical vidence. nanalyzinghe in-
societyof material roduction,orinstance,ThomasSoderqvistxplicitly eclareshisuncertaintyhat sucha new agehas comeupon us,eschewsanyexaminationof theevidence hereon,but rushes o spell out the ways n whichthe existenceof sucha societyrequires s to revisehistoricalmaterialism.Reading ffortsofthis sort induces the unlikely combination of amazement, mpatience,and
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boredom: how can they go on and on at that level of abstraction, unsmudged
by any contact with historical experience? How can they do so when most of
the authors are living from day to day through one of the great historical ex-
periences of our time?Not one vivid, vigorous, and arresting analysis of any historical process-
including the constructionor dismantlingof state-socialist regimes appears any-
where in this wearying book. The neglect of history and historiography produces
confidence-shaking blunders, as when Axel Honneth uncritically appropriates
Harry Braverman'sanalysis of deskilling, which even leftist historians of capi-
talist industry now regard as at best grossly oversimplifiedand at worst deeply
erroneous. I. C. Jarvie's self-satisfied retrospecton the conception of social class
presented in a book he published in 1972, and Louis Kriesberg'sinconclusivegeneral discussion of relations between consensus and conflict, leave a reader
wondering why Jarvie and Kriesbergmade the effort,not to mention why Nowak
printed their essays. I cannot measure the relative contributions of muddy tau-
tology and inadequate English in the text of Adam Bartoszek, Ewa Bogalska-
Czajkowska,WaldemarCzajkowski, and Andrzej Malkiewicz,which ends charac-
teristically with these obscure words: It seems to be obvious that the struggle
between groups generated by dominating form of social division of labour is
a dominating kind of struggle. Hence the thesis about class struggle is as far
valid as valid is assumption that class division is a basic form of the social divi-
sion (118). Maybe it scans better in Polish.
The book provides, to be sure, some brighter moments. Andrzej Klawiter's
lucid explication and reconstruction of Marx on successive social formations,
for example, usefully lays out alternative interpretationsas tree diagrams, even
if it fails to confront Eric Hobsbawm's conflicting interpretationin the introduc-
tion to the English-language selection from the Grundrisse published as Pre-
CapitalistEconomic Formations. Elsewhere,Dick Pels kicks energeticallyat Alvin
Gouldner's putatively dialectical analysis of the New Class. Such moments are
few and far between. If you like your history unhistorical and your Marxism
or post-Marxism unrelievedly abstract, you have found your book.
CHARLES TILLY
New Schoolfor Social Research
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