From: cdavidson-AT-igc.apc.org
Date:          Tue, 5 Mar 1996 18:27:28 +0000
Subject:       Re: Wittfogel's *Oriental Despotism*


> From:          Alex Trotter <uburoi-AT-panix.com>
> Subject:       Wittfogel's *Oriental Despotism*
> 
> I recently finished reading *Oriental Despotism* by Karl August 
> Wittfogel. A very interesting work that addresses the kind of societies 
> that Marx had referred to as being under the "Asiatic mode of 
> production," characterized by hydraulic agricultural systems in arid 
> climatic regions administered by very powerful centralized bureaucracies. 
>........................... 
> Has anyone else on the list read this book and have any comments about it?
> 

Alex:  Yes, I've read Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism.  I think it is 
a profound work and a major, if unsung, contribution to Marxism. As 
someone who was schooled in Mao Zedong Thought and visited China 
several times in the 1970s, it helped me a great deal in getting a 
critical perspective on my own political experience, as well as a 
broader understanding of history and the development of production. 
Likewise, it's invaluable in revealing the feudal and despotic 
tendencies in all the Marxisms and nationalisms rooted in "hydraulic" 
societies--Mao, Kim IL Sung even Stalin to an extent. Carl Davidson, 
Chicago.


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