Towards a Materialist History of Ideas: History, Contradictions, and Possibilities

This article is a contribution to the development of a Marxist approach to the history of ideas. It commences with an outline of historical materialism and its relevance to the study of the history of ideas. It then traces Marxism’s marginalization within the discipline back to Quentin Skinner’s paradigmatic “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas.” The article outlines his approach to the history of ideas before introducing and engaging one of the most successful subsequent attempts to construct an alternative Marxist approach to the history of ideas, more specifically Ellen Meiksins Wood’s “social history of political theory.” However, I identify a number of contradictions in her approach that can be traced back to Skinner’s influence and show how they might be resolved via Marx’s historical materialism. Finally, I outline a novel Marxist approach to the history of ideas that combines Marx’s historical materialism with Ellen Meiksin Wood’s social history of political theory and exemplify how it might be deployed.