Firearms & the Fortress

Karl Marx's so-called theory of historical materialism has been one of the most influential social and political ideas in human history, but what if it missed something crucial? Science – even in the loose sense in which it applies to sociology – is never complete, and occasionally, a new insight may reveal the need for a thoroughgoing revision. Firearms & the Fortress argues that the means of production – the most basic 'level' in Marx's schema – can only be predicated on the basis of something even more fundamental: 'the means of securitisation.' Along the way, we get an overview of recent critical theory and an attempt to map out a road to a better world. 

James Ward is the author of 21st Century Philosophy (2012) and A New Theory of Justice and Other Essays (2013). His 1998 Master's dissertation explored the relation between the eternal and the temporal in Søren Kierkegaard's 'authorship', while his 2001 doctoral thesis focused on Karl Marx's critique of Max Stirner in The German Ideology.  Whilst working towards his MA, he won joint first prize (along with Martha Nussbaum and Lars Gårding) in a philosophical dialogues competition organised by the Humanities Research Centre at Oxford University and the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, on the topic of Kierkegaard's concept of 'Repetition'. The piece was subsequently performed in Stockholm before an invited audience, and published in Comparative Criticism (vol. 20, Cambridge University Press, 1998).