Centuries of Transition
Neil Davidson
Abstract This review of Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages situates book within context his earlier writings on transition to feudalism, and contrasts explanation for dating process with those two main opposing positions set out in Perry Anderson’s Passages from Antiquity Feudalism (1974) Guy Bois’s The Transformation Year One Thousand (1989). Although modifies some positions, it largely sidesteps explicit theoretical discussion a compellingly detailed empirical study which extends almost entire territorial extent former Roman Empire. focuses three themes raised by important work: existence or otherwise ‘peasant’-mode production its relationship ‘Asiatic’ mode; nature state-formation question when state can be said have come into existence; rôle different types class-struggle - slave-rebellions, tax-revolts peasant-uprisings establishing feudal system.
Historical Materialism|Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde)