From feudalism to capitalism : social and political change in Castile and Western Europe, 1250-1520

"Carlos Astarita's From Feudalism to Capitalism: Social and Political Change in Castile and Western Europe, 1250-1520 presents for an English-speaking readership a major intervention in a number of debates in Marxist historiography. The work has four thematic nuclei: the socio-political evolution that led to the feudal state, the genesis of capitalist rural production, the class struggle and the relationship of these factors with the commercial flow between regions. Received interpretations are reevaluated through a series of original case studies that greatly enrich our understanding of theoretical terms, and suggest new interpretations of the absolutist state, the temporal validity of the law of value and the origins of capitalism"--