‘At this millennial transition, the human capacity to envision imaginary worlds seems to be shifting into high gear. For anthropologists and others, greater concern with how ideas and power converge seems eminently warranted.’

Eric R. Wolf, Envisioning power, 1999

The arrival in 1999 of Eric Wolf's last book Envisioning power. Ideologies of dominance and crisis generated much excitement. Long the standard bearer for political economy in anthropology and often credited with bringing Marxism to anthropology, Wolf had not published a major monograph since Europe and the people without history, which in 1982 defined Marxian anthropology. A very different book, in a very different time, Envisioning power represented Eric Wolf's attempt to highlight the importance of ideology in the exercise of power through looking at three societies in crisis: the post-contact Kwakiutl, the pre-contact Tenochca and National Socialist Germany.