A majority of the most influential grand theories in the social sciences was produced in the time from the 1960s to the 1990s. The generational dynamic of the Cold War debate on Marxism accounts for this timing. Academic engagement with Marxism is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Until well into the middle of the twentieth century, accounts of Marxism in academia were dominated by anti-Marxist scholars, who considered historical materialism to be a secular religion focused on an eschatological view of history, rather than proper science. The inclusion of Marx among the classics of the social sciences largely owes to a postwar generation of scholars, who took Marxism as a prototype for their own theorizing. By analyzing the grand theories of Habermas, Giddens, and Foucault, the article shows that Marxism was prototypical, i.e., form-giving, even where it is at first glance only one point of reference among many. Grand theory, as we know it from the second half of the twentieth century, is a phenomenon largely tied to this generation of scholars and the peculiar historical moment they found themselves entangled in.
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