| Review of: | The Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann edited by John A. Hall, Ralph Schroeder |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | George Lawson |
| Reviewed in: | Political Studies Review |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 05, Issue 03, Pages 395-474 |
Book Reviews: Political Theory
Michael Mann is rather unfashionable - a classical sociologist in a discipline caught between the rock of the cultural turn and the hard place of abstract modelling. If anything, Mann is a kind of 'classical sociologist plus'. After all, as Randall Collins points out in his contribution to this outstanding collection, 'whereas Weber provided a tool box for analysing world history, Mann actually does the historical analysis' (p. 71). Indeed he does. Michael Mann has become the academy's David Livingstone - its explorer extraordinaire. Mann's
The editors of the volume have compiled a veritable who's who of contributors from across the academy, testimony to Mann's appeal across disciplinary boundaries. The sixteen chapters cover a vast range of issues - from Mann's work on theory and method to his writings on modernity, international relations, the 'rise of the West' and more. Other chapters fill in useful bibliographical material and provide general overviews of Mann's work. Not withstanding an unevenness intrinsic to edited volumes of this kind, most chapters deliver in providing considered introductions to, and interrogations of, Mann's contribution to these debates. As such, it is difficult to imagine this volume missing from any reading list which contains significant reference to Mann.
It should be noted that the subtitle of the volume is a misnomer - Mann does not have a social theory, at least not a recognisable one. What Mann has is a method (the IEMP model representing ideal-typical constellations of ideological, economic, military and political power relations) which aims to cut through the mess of world history without requiring a commitment to determination or ultimate primacy. For my money, this is no bad thing. After all, determinacy tends to carry a high price in terms of explanatory purchase, and Mann clearly places more worth on the latter than the former. Of course, this outlook will not please everyone. Gianfranco Poggi, for instance, one of the two or three more critical contributors to this volume, is forceful in his critique of Mann's preference for complexity over parsimony: 'if he read Mann, Occam would reach for his razor' (p. 136).
The highlight of the book is Mann's lengthy rejoinder. This densely argued chapter provides as close a summary of Mann's position on methodological issues, his separation out of coercive power from political power, the significance of the 'caging' of social relations in national states, the 'dark side of democracy' and the role of ideology in the making of the modern world as it is possible to find. Throughout the chapter, Mann forcefully defends his analytical, political and normative positions against attempts to pigeonhole, label or otherwise abbreviate them. This refusal to simplify is one of Mann's most abiding tendencies and one of his greatest strengths. Far too often, the contemporary academy is dominated by endlessly reinvented meta-theoretical disputes, a predilection towards methodological navel gazing and a faux scientism towards which Mann is rightly scathing. Mann may be old-fashioned, but perhaps his greatest triumph is to remind us that there is nothing necessarily wrong with this. To the contrary, there is much to be gained from classical sociological analysis, something this volume makes abundantly clear.