Zola: The History of Capitalism

This innovative study of Emile Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart cycle reads Zola's novels as a history of capitalism. Drawing on critical methods from history, politics and literary theory, the author seeks to establish new connections between the work of Zola and that of Marx, Weber and Durkheim and to situate Zola's ideas in contemporary debates on capitalism.

The Author: William Gallois was born in 1971 and is a Lecturer in Modern European History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

Contents: Introduction: reading Zola - Modernity - Capitalism - Imperialism - Secularization - Resistance - History - Possibilities - Appendix A: Zola and Wittgenstein - Appendix B: Reading capitalism - Bibliography - Index.