Hobsbawm, E. J.
1964 Introduction. In Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. pp. 9-65. International Publishers, New York.
A summary of pre-capitalist discussions by Marx and Engels. A good place to start.
Kuusinen, O.V., Y.A. Arbatov, A. S. Belyakov, S.L. Vygodsky, A.G. Mileikovsky, and L.M. Sheidin,with the assistance of F.M. Burlatsky, N.I. Ivanov, B.M. Leibzon, A.A. Makarovsky, and Y.P. Sitkovsky.
1963 Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism. Second Revised Edition. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow. English Edition edited by Clemens Dutt.
A fundamental text used for years in teaching Marxism-Leninism in the USSR. It is a good summary of the essentials of the viewpoint (but always note the year of publication of the edition you're using). Its main drawback is the poor quality of citation of the original sources.
Stalin, J. V.
1972 Marxism and Problems of Linguistics. Peking, Foreign Languages Press.
Stalin addresses the issue of whether language is superstructure or base (it is base).
Chayanov, A. V.
1966 The Theory of Peasant Economy. edited by D. Thorner, B. Kerblay, and R. E. F Smith. The Economic Association, Homewood, Illinois.
A classical work based on massive statistics on Russian peasant economy. Much misunderstood, but indicates the domestic character of peasant production.
Goody, Jack
1976 Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 17. Cambridge, U.K.
More on the "domestic economy"
Hindess, Barry and Paul Q. Hirst
1975 Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production. Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
The massive Western discussion of pre-capitalist modes of production, but see Hindess and Hirst 1977.
1977 Mode of Production and Social Formation: An Auto-Critique of Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production. Macmillan, London.
Auto (self-)criticism is a Marxist technique in which a person admits their own errors. Hindess and Hirst have essentially rejected much of their earlier work in 1975. Not everyone agrees that the 1977 work negates the 1975.
Meillassoux, Claude
1981 Maidens, Meal and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. [translation of 1977 Femmes, grenier et capitaux. Maspero, Paris.].
The classic work on how a non-capitalist social formation can be incorporated into capitalist production. Important analysis of how domestic economies survive in more complex contexts.
Baily, Anne M. and Josep R. Llobera, editors
1981 The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. Routledge & Kegan Paul, Boston.
One of several histories dealing with the problem of whether the Asiatic mode of production is a valid concept.
Dunn, Stephen P.
1982 The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production. Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
A history of the political practice associated with advocacy, rejection, and rehabilitation of the Asiatic mode in the USSR.
Krader, Lawrence
1975 The Asiatic Mode of Production: Sources, Development and Critique in the Writings of Karl Marx. Van Gorcum & Co., Assen, Netherlands.
Another discussion of the Asiatic mode of production. The Asiatic mode is of particular relevance to the problems of non-Western states and chiefdoms.
Ostrovitianov, Iurri and Antonina Sterbalova
1977 The Social "Genotype" of the East and the Prospect of National States [Part I], Soviet Anthropology and Archeology 16(1):27-48. [Original in Russian in Novy mir 12:197-208, 1972].
Veiled Soviet discussion of the Asiatic Mode.
Wittfogel, Karl A.
1963 Oriental Despotism. Yale, New Haven.
Wittfogel started as a Marxist, but his 'heresy' in regard to the Asiatic Mode resulted in his expulsion from the Party. A careful reading of this work will suggest why.
Godelier, Maurice
1977 Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 18. Cambridge, U. K.
A collection of modern, mostly Western, Marxian approaches.
Luk·cs, Georg
1954 Die Zerst–rung der Vernunft. Berlin. [1980, Translation by Peter Palmer, The Destruction of Reason, The Merlin Press, London].
A critique of Soviet Marxism-Leninism.
Ollman, Bertell
1971 Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society. Cambridge University Press, New York.
A basic source for the 'Theory of Internal Relations' -- a 'realist' (i.e., 'idealist') interpretation of Marx and Engels. (see Sayer)
Sayer, Derek
1987 The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
The most powerful argument for the 'Theory of Internal Relations' -- a 'realist' (i.e., 'idealist') interpretation of Marx and Engels. (see Ollman)
Brumfiel, Elizabeth and T. Earle
1987 Specialisation, Exchange and Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
A collection of papers touching on issues central to archaeological investigation of political economy.
Carneiro, Robert
1970 A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169:733-738.
Environmental cirumscription is seen as basic to the formation of the state.
Earle, T. K.
1987 Specialization and the Production and Exchange of Wealth: Hawaiian Chiefdoms and the Inka Empire. In Specialisation, Exchange and Complex Societies, edited by E. Brumfiel and T. Earle, pp. 64-75, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
a comparison of state formation and economy in two critical cases.
Feinman, Gary and Jill Neitzel
1984 Too Many Types: An Overview of Sedentary Prestate Societies in the Americas. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 7. Academic Press, New York.
a critique of the overuse of typological constructs of prestate societies.
Fried, Morton H.
1967 The Evolution of Political Society. Random House, New York.
Together with Service's work, a founding source for the modern synthesis of prestate classification.
Sahlins, Marshall
1968 Tribesmen. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Discussion of non-chiefdom, non-state societies. Later, Sahlins rejected the concept of 'tribe'.
1972 Stone-Age Economics. Aldine, Chicago.
Leaning on Chayanov and others, this work developed the concept of 'domestic economy.'
Sanders, William T. and Barbara J. Price
1968 Mesoamerica: the Evolution of a Civilization. New York, Random House.
One of the earliest and most systematic applications of the Service typology of social formations to archaeological materials. Had a tremendous impact.
Service, Elman R.
1962 Primitive Social Organization: an Evolutionary Perspective. Random House, New York.
Together with Fried's work, a founding source for the modern synthesis of prestate classification.
1975 Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. W. W. Norton, New York.
an expansion of the concepts developed in earlier work by Service and Fried.
Dalton, George, editor
1967 Tribal and Peasant Economies: Readings in Economic Anthropology. Garden City, New York, Natural History Press.
Various readings on economic anthropology of non-Western peoples.
1968 Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi. Garden City, New York, Anchor Books.
An economist's view of economic issues in the social sciences. Basic to the culture historical debate between 'substantivists' and 'formalists' in economics, cf. Herskovits.
Herskovits, Melville J.
1965 Economic Anthropology: The Economic Life of Primitive Peoples. New York, The Norton Library.
A 'formalist' perspective on culture historical economic anthropology.
Gibbon, Guy
1984 Anthropological Archaeology. Columbia University Press, New York.
A 'realist' interpretation of archaeology, deserving more recognition as an American source for postprocessual archaeology
Hodder, Ian
1982 The Present Past: An Introduction to Anthropology for Archaeologists. Pica Press, New York.
An example of the sophistication (or rather the lack thereof) of postprocessualist archaeologists as anthropologists.
1984 Archaeology in 1984. Antiquity 58(222):25-32.
The clearest statement by Hodder of his idealist bias.
1986 Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, New York.
The dawning of critical criticism in archaeology.
1987 Bow Ties and Pet Foods: Material Culture and the Negotiation of Change in British Industry. in I. Hodder, ed., The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings. pp. 11-19. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
An example of postprocessualist explanation of historical phenomena.
Hodder, Ian (editor)
1982 Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, New York.
The manifesto that signaled the rejection of Binford, Clarke, and Renfrew and the formation of postprocessualism.
1987 The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Various essays on critical criticism in archaeology. Compare Jean-Claude Gardin's work (not cited here) for a different approach to the analysis of archaeological text as text.
Kohl, Philip L.
1985 Symbolic Cognitive Archaeology: A New Loss of Innocence. Dialectical Anthropology 9:105-117.
An historical materialist critique of postprocessualism.
1988 Limits to a Post-Processual Archaeology (or The Dangers of a New Scholasticism). Paper presented at the Theory in Post-Processual Archaeology symposium, Society for American Archaeology, Phoenix.
1989 World Prehistory: Comments on the Development, Peculiarities and Requirements of a Forgotten Genre. Ms. 13 Feb. 1989.
An analysis of racist and other nonprogressive elements in some archaeologies.
Miller, Daniel, and C. Tilley, eds.
1984 Ideology, Power and Prehistory. Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press.
A postprocessual collection of papers on ideas and power in prehistory.
Shanks, Michael and Christopher Tilley
1982 Ideology, Symbolic Power and Ritual Communication: A Reinterpretation of Neolithic Mortuary Practices. in I. Hodder, ed., Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. pp. 129-154. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
An emphasis on power and domination marks this early postprocessualist paper.
1987 Social Theory and Archaeology. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
An expansion of the ideas proposed earlier on domination as a key factor in social change.
Tilley,Christopher
1982 Social Formation, Social Structures and Social Change. in I. Hodder, ed., Symbolic and Structural Archaeology. pp. 26-38. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Another early statement on domination and power as key elements in social change.
Brohmer, Paul
1933 Biologieunterricht und v–lkische Erziehhung. Verlag Mortiz Diesterweg. [Selections in translation in George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich. pp. 81-90. Grosset & Dunlap, New York.]
An example of one possible, though certainly not inevitable, consequence of an idealist approach to prehistory: Nazi 'race science'.
Lenard, Philipp
1936 Deutsche Physik. Bd. 1: Einleitung und Meckanik. J.F. Lehmanns Verlag, M¸nchen. [Selections in translation in George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich. pp. 201-205. Grosset & Dunlap, New York.]
Another example of how ideology can permeate all fields, in this case, a racial physics.
L–wy, Michael
1984 Stalinist Ideology and Science. In The Stalinist Legacy: Its Impact on 20th Century World Politics. edited by Tariq Ali, pp. 168-184. Penguin Books, New York.
A critique of Stalinist distortions of science (from a Trotskyist perspective). What happens when ideology on the left overrides a refutationist view of knowledge.
Nolte, Ernst
1966 Three Faces of Fascism: Action FranÁaise, Italian Fascism, National Socialism. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. [orig. 1963, Der Fasichismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action franÁaise, Der Italiener Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus. R. Piper Verlag, M¸nchen.]
An analysis of the essential elements of fascism, including: a rejection of the Enlightenment view of reason and an emphasis on 'action' (or 'practice'?).
Flannery, Kent V.
1972 The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3:399-426.
A discussion of major events and processes in the development of the state.
Gabel, Creighton
1967 Analysis of Prehistoric Economic Patterns. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
A methods book (by an Africanist) on economic analysis in archaeology.
Hegmon, Michelle
1991 The Risks of Sharing and Sharing as Risk Reduction: Interhousehold Food Sharing in Egalitarian Societies. In Between Bands and States, edited by S. A. Gregg, pp. 309-329. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper No. 9.
A discussion of the role of risk in nonstate societies.
Johnson, Gregory
1978 Information Sources and the Development of Decision-making Organizations. In Social Archaeology: Beyond Subsistence and Dating. edited by C. L. Redman, et al. pp. 87-112. Academic Press, New York.
A 'cybernetic' or 'information theory' approach to social complexity. "Information" is NOT to be confused with "ideas."
Vayda, Andrew P., editor
1969 Environment and Cultural Behavior: Ecological Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Garden City, New York, Natural History Press.
Cultural ecology is a kind of antithesis of culture history, resulting in the 'processualist' synthesis. Here is a collection of cultural ecological papers for background.
Wobst, H. Martin
1977 Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange. In For the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffin, edited by Charles Cleland, pp. 317-342. University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers 61.
An information -- or perhaps more correctly, a communication -- model of the role of style in artifacts. Important here in terms of artifacts as signals of social, political, and economic identity.
Bloch, Marc
1961 Feudal Society. University of Chicago, Chicago. [translation of La SociÈtÈ FÈodale ].
A nice discussion of the societies in Europe that are contemporary with Mississippian. A skeptical view of their complexity reveals many interesting comparisons to Mississippian.
Earle, T. K.
1977 A Reappraisal of Redistribution: Complex Hawaiian Chiefdoms. In Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by T. K. Earle and J. E. Ericson, pp. 213-229. Academic Press, New York.
an examination of a society used by Service et al. to define chiefly economies. Earle concludes that redistribution in Service's form, is not present.
1978 Economic and Social Organization of a Complex Chiefdom: The Halalea District, Kaua'i, Hawaii. Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan 63.
an examination of a society used by Service et al. to define chiefly economies. Earle concludes that redistribution in Service's form, is not present.
Flannery, Kent. V.
1968 The Olmec and Valley of Oaxaca: A Model for Inter-Regional Interaction in Formative Times. In Dunbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, edited by E. P. Benson, pp. 79-110. Dunbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
An exchange view of complexity in development.
Isbell, William H.
1978 Environmental Perturbations and the Origin of the Andean State. In Social Archaeology: Beyond Subsistence and Dating. edited by C. L. Redman et al., pp. 303-313. Academic Press, New York.
An important paper in indicating non-specialization bases for 'redistribution'.
Meillassoux, Claude
1964 Anthropologie Èconomique des Gouro de CÙte d'Ivoire: De l'Èconomie de subsistence ý l'agriculture commerciale. Le Monde d'Outre-mer PassÈ et Present, PremiËre Serie, Študes 27. Mouton, Paris.
Economic data on a non-Western domestic economy society.
Postan, M. M.
1975 The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain in the Middle Ages. Penguin, New York.
Another summary of Medieval economy. see Bloch
Stark, Barbara L.
1986 Perspectives on the Peripheries of Mesoamerica. In Ripples in the Chichimec Sea, edited by F. J. Mathien and R. H. McGuire, pp. 270-290. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press.
Skepticism on the relationships of Mesoamerica and the Southwest.
Steward, Julian H. and Louis C. Faron
1959 Native Peoples of South America. McGraw-Hill, New York.
The concept of 'Chiefdom' was developed for northern South American societies -- see also the Handbook of South American Indians.
Whitecotton, Joseph and Richard A. Pailes
1986 New World Precolumbian World Systems. In Ripples in the Chichimec Sea: New Considerations of Southwestern-Mesoamerican Interactions, edited by F. J. Mathien and R. H. McGuire, pp. 183-204. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.
More skepticism on the relations of the Southwest to Mesoamerica. Useful in correcting for some overstatements of US-Mexican contacts in general.