Critiques of historical materialism tend to be one of two types: either they are hostile attacks by anti-Marxists intent on demonstrating the falsity, perniciousness or theoretical irrelevance of Marxism, or they are reconstructive critiques from within the Marxist tradition attempting to overcome theoretical weaknesses in order to advance the Marxist project. In these terms, Anthony Giddens's two books, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism and The Nation-State and Violence, are rare works: appreciative critiques by a non-Marxist of the Marxist tradition in social theory. While finding a great deal that is wrong with basic assumptions and general propositions in Marxism, Giddens also argues that ‘Marx's analysis of the mechanisms of capitalist production … remains the necessary core of any attempt to come to terms with the massive transformations that have swept the world since the eighteenth century’ (CCHM, p. 1). Indeed, there are certain specific discussions in the books – such as the use of the labour theory of value and the analysis of the capitalist labour process – in which Giddens's position is closer than many contemporary Marxists to orthodox Marxism. The books are thus not a wholesale rejection of Marxism, but rather an attempt at a genuine ‘critique’ in the best sense of the word – a deciphering of the underlying limitations of a social theory in order to appropriate in an alternative framework what is valuable in it. While, as I shall attempt to show, I think many of Giddens's specific arguments against historical materialism are unsatisfactory, the books are a serious engagement with Marxism and deserve a serious reading by both Marxists and non-Marxists.