Late Capitalism (Verso Classics, 23) (ISBN 185984202X)

A necessary stumbling block.:
What Mandel tries to do in this work is something completely out of date by our postmodern standards: to write about the history of capitalism in terms of change in the general material basis of production, the patterns of class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working classes over it, and their joint effects on the general profit rate. Having read his work in the early 1980s, I daresay much of it woood appear to us today as wooden, naive, or both; but neverthless it refreshes our memory to the fact that, behind our "mentalities" and "discourses", there is an actual ecpnomy moved by actual class interest. In short: a must-read.