The Rise and Fall of Marxist Perspectives: Eugene Genovese and the Fight for Hegemony in Radical American Historiography

Abstract

In the spring of 1978, radical historians launched the academic journal Marxist Perspectives. Edited by the celebrated Marxist historian Eugene Genovese, the journal comprised one of the strongest collectives of radical historians that American academia has ever seen. However, Marxist Perspectives collapsed after only two years in print. This article charts the journal's origins and its premature demise as a lens to explore Genovese's intellectual career and examine how competing radical factions attempted to define the field. In analyzing how both personal academic rivalries and political divisions stunted and formed intellectual production, the article demonstrates that radical historiography was shaped by internal critiques over how to build a new American left within an advanced capitalist society.