On Karl Marx

“In 1968 we celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. We still have reason to hope for a concrete celebration in 2018” With a demonstrably thorough grasp of Marxist thought, and seemingly effortless literary flair, Ernst Bloch provides both the well-versed reader and the novice a truly enjoyable introduction to one of the most influential thinkers in history.

Karl Marx has fascinated and inspired generations of radicals in the past 200 years. In this new, definitive biography, Sven-Eric Liebman makes his work live once more for a new generation. Despite 200 years having passed since his birth, his burning condemnation of capitalism remains of immediate interest. Now, more than ever before, Marx's texts can be read for what they truly are. In addition to providing a living picture of Marx the man, his life, and his family and friends - as well as his lifelong collaboration with Friedrich Engels - Sweden's leading intellectual historian Sven-Eric Liedman, in this major new biography, shows what Karl Marx the thinker and researcher really wrote, demonstrating that this giant of the nineteenth century can still exert a powerful attraction for the inhabitants of the twenty-first.

"Delving into Karl Marx's central works as well as his natural scientific notebooks, published only recently and still being translated, [the author] argues that Karl Marx actually saw the environment crisis embedded in captialism. [The book] shows us that Marx has given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to finishing Marx's critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world."--Page [4] of cover.

Looks at the life of the father of Communism focusing primarily on the human side of the man rather than his works.

Twenty-first-century capitalism has little more to offer than a menu of despair: pandemics, deepening inequality, worsening depression, runaway climate change, intensifying authoritarianism and escalating militarism. Twilight Capitalism offers a wide-ranging analysis of the origins, implications and scope of the “combined” social crisis of 2020 and beyond. A compelling case is made that Karl Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism, along with his program of class-struggle socialism, is essential to understanding and addressing the most important social, economic and ecological problems of our time.

A "close textual analysis" of the life and work of Karl Marx, emphasizing that his thought took the form of a secular religion, deeply affected by his Christian upbringing. Supports the research trend seeing a unity between the thought of the young, "humanist" Marx and the later "scientific" thinker. Marx's early essay "On the Jewish Question" is dealt with in ch. 6 (pp. 70-77). In presenting Judaism as a synonym for capitalism, Marx echoes antisemitic stereotypes, perhaps influenced by self-hatred. In the process, he reached fruitful insights about society and history.

He was relatively unknown in his lifetime, but Karl Marx’s theories about society, economics, and politics changed the world, led to the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union and the creation of the People’s Republic of China, and inspired variants from Leninism and Stalinism to Trotskyism and Maoism. Marx is one of the most influential thinkers of the modern age, but in recent times “Marxism” has become a vague, contestable, and uncertain term. In this concise, accessible book, Paul Thomas casts a clarifying light on Marx’s life and writings, providing a cogent introduction to a contemporary audience. Illuminating Marx’s development as a critical thinker and revolutionary politician, Thomas explores how the events of Marx’s life influenced his doctrines. Thomas follows Marx from his birth into a wealthy family in Prussia, to his period of study of philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin and his subsequent work as a journalist for radical newspapers in Cologne and Paris, where he began to develop the concepts that would lead to Marxism. As Marx found himself exiled to Brussels and finally to London, Thomas illustrates how he was inspired by his relationships with other socialist thinkers, particularly Friedrich Engels, and the tumultuous and fluctuating state of the governments in Europe. These experiences and their influence on Marx inspired The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, along with the many other books and pamphlets that continue to be read and discussed today. A valuable resource for anyone trying to understand the governments, wars, and movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Karl Marx is an enlightening book about this potent thinker and the world that created him.

For over a century, Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism has been a crucial resource for social movements. Now, recent economic crises have made it imperative for us to comprehend and actualize Marx’s ideas. But without a knowledge of Karl Marx’s life as he lived it, neither Marx nor his works can be fully understood. There are more than twenty-five comprehensive biographies of Marx, but none of them consider his life and work in equal, corresponding measure. This biography, planned for three volumes, aims to include what most biographies have reduced to mere background: the contemporary conflicts, struggles, and disputes that engaged Marx at the time of his writings, alongside his complex relationships with a varied assortment of friends and opponents. This first volume will deal extensively with Marx’s youth in Trier and his studies in Bonn and Berlin. It will also examine the function of poetry in his intellectual development and his first occupation with Hegelian philosophy and with the so-called “young Hegelians” in his 1841 Dissertation. Already during this period, there were crises as well as breaks in Marx’s intellectual development that prompted Marx to give up projects and re-conceptualize his critical enterprise. This volume is the beginning of an astoundingly dimensional look at Karl Marx – a study of a complex life and body of work through the neglected issues, events, and people that helped comprise both. It is destined to become a classic.