Vivek Chibber in Jacobin responds to Bruce Robbins review of his book Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital in n+1:
Bruce Robbins’ review in the latest issue of N+1 falls somewhere in-between. His tone for most of it is respectful, sometimes generous. He quite ably sets the context for the book’s arguments and tries to lay out what is at stake. In this, he rises above the mud-slinging that has been the resort of some of his colleagues. But once Robbins sets out his own criticisms, the essay degenerates into a series of distortions and misconceptions. What makes them interesting, and worth responding to, is that they converge with misgivings that even sympathetic readers have expressed.
The crux of Robbins’ criticism comes at the end of his review, and centers around three issues: whether my views of the English Revolution of 1640 and/or 1688 are defensible; whether my framework can apprehend the difference between East and West; and whether my materialism is really a restatement of rational choice theory. On all three counts his criticisms are mistaken.
More here. Robbins responds in n+1.