Wood was born Ellen Meiksins one year after her parents, Latvian Jews active in the Bund, arrived in New York from Europe as political refugees from fascism. She was raised in the United States and Europe.
Wood received a B.A. in Slavic languages from the University of California, Berkeley in 1962 and subsequently entered the graduate program in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which she received the Ph.D. in 1970. From 1967 to 1996, she taught political science at Glendon College, York University in Toronto, Canada.
She has written many books and articles, some conjointly with her husband, Neal Wood (1922-2003). Her book The Retreat from Class received the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1988. Her work has been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Wood served on the editorial committee of the British journal New Left Review between 1984 and 1993. From 1997 to 2000, Wood was an editor, along with Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy, of Monthly Review, the independent socialist magazine.
In 1996, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada, a marker of distinguished scholarship. She now resides in England.
Mind and Politics: An Approach to the Meaning of Liberal and Socialist Individualism (University of California Press, 1972).
The Retreat from Class: A New 'True' Socialism (Schocken Books, 1986). ISBN 0-8052-7280-1, and (Verso Classics, January 1999) reprint with new introductionv. ISBN 1-85984-270-4.
The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (Verso, 1992). ISBN 0-86091-572-7.
Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (Cambridge University Press, 1995). ISBN 0-521-47682-8. Excerpt available here
Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (Verso, February 20, 1997). ISBN 0-86091-911-0.
The Origin of Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 1999), 120 pp. ISBN 1-58367-000-9, ISBN 1-58367-007-6.
A Longer View (Verso Books, 2002), 213 pp. ISBN 1-85984-392-1, ISBN 978-1-85984-392-5.
Empire of Capital, (Verso, 2003) (ISBN 978-1-85984-502-8) & paperback (Verso, 2005). ISBN 1-84467-518-1.
Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Verso, 2008). ISBN 978-1-84467-243-1.
Co-Authored with Neal Wood
Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context (Oxford University Press, 1978).
A Trumpet of Sedition: Political Theory and the Rise of Capitalism, 1509-1688 (New York University Press, 1997).
Co-Edited Collections
In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda, ed. with John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review Press, 1997).
Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution, ed. with Robert W. McChesney and John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review Press, 1998).
Rising from the Ashes? Labor in the Age of "Global" Capitalism, ed. with Peter Meiksins and Michael Yates (Monthly Review Press, 1998).
"C.B. MacPherson: Liberalism, And The Task Of Socialist Political Theory", The Socialist Register, Vol.15 (1978), pp. 215—240. Critical evaluation of the thought of C. B. Macpherson. [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
"Liberal Democracy And Capitalist Hegemony: A Reply To Leo Panitch On The Task Of Socialist Political Theory", The Socialist Register, Vol. 18 (1981), pp. 169—189. On socialist political theory. [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
"Marxism Without Class Struggle?", The Socialist Register, Vol. 20 (1983), pp. 239—271. [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
"The Uses and Abuses of 'Civil' Society,", The Socialist Register, Vol. 26: The Retreat of the Intellectuals (1990), pp. 60—84. [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
"Ralph Milband, 1924-1994", Radical Philoshopy, issue 68 (Autumn 1994). Homage to Ralph Miliband
"A Chronology of the New Left and its Successors, or: Who's Old-Fashioned Now?", The Socialist Register, Vol. 31: Why Not Capitalism? (1995), pp. 22—49.
"Modernity, Postmodernity, or Capitalism?", Monthly Review (July-August 1996). [ Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/ 18 April 2010 ]
"Issues of class and culture: an interview with Aijaz Ahmad", Monthly Review (October 1996). [ Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/ 18 April 2010 ]
"Happy Campers" book review of Why Not Socialism? by G.A. Cohen, London Review of Books, Vol. 32, No. 2 (28 January 2010) [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
"Why It Matters" book review of Hobbes and Republican Liberty by Quentin Skinner, London Review of Books, Vol. 30, No. 18 (25 September 2008) [ Retrieved 18 April 2010 ]
