Michael Rosen brings intoxicating erudition and an elegant if elusive prose style to crack—or pulverize—one of the most venerable chestnuts of social theory, the theory of ideology. For Rosen, the two central elements of that theory are (1) that societies are self-maintaining systems and (2) that they produce false consciousness in their members precisely because it helps to maintain society. And for Rosen, the theory is, well, a spectacular mess.
-- Don Herzog American Journal of Sociology
In Marxist theory, the concept of ideology is designed to account for why people accept political oppression even when it is clearly against their best interests to do so. Rosen carefully analyzes the elements of this basic Marxist concept and shows that the general project still has promise, but only if certain problematic assumptions are abandoned. Historical roots of the notion of false consciousness are traced from Plato and Augustine through Hume, Rousseau, and Smith. Rigorous reviews of ideology theory in Hegel and Marx follow, with a brief overview of Frankfurt School contributions. This volume will be used heavily by advanced readers in the human sciences.
-- Choice