This text presents a series of case studies - including classical Greece, Renaissance Italy and the Portuguese and Spanish empires - to show how the historical-materialist analysis of societies is a better guide to understanding global systems than the theories of standard international relations.

The method of interpreting political theory in relation to its specific historical contexts offers particular insight into the work of Karl Marx. When pre-capitalist societies are understood in relation to Marx's rigorously conceived capitalist mode of production, it is apparent that the context in which Marx produced his very earliest work was itself pre-capitalist. It can then be recognized that Marx began by making a significant contribution to an existing framework of critical political theory but also that, following a critical (...) confrontation with English political economy in 1844, he opened new avenues of thought in relation to a new context: capitalism. (shrink)