A new biography of Karl Marx, tracing the life of this titanic figure and the legacy of his work Karl Marx remains the most influential and controversial political thinker in history. He died quietly in 1883 and a mere eleven mourners attended his funeral, but a year later he was being hailed as "the Prophet himself" whose name and writings would "endure through the ages." He has been viewed as a philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, even a literary craftsman. But who was Marx? What informed his critiques of modern society? And how are we to understand his legacy? In Marx and Marxism, Gregory Claeys, a leading historian of socialism, offers a wide-ranging, accessible account of Marx's ideas and their development, from the nineteenth century through the Russian Revolution to the present. After the collapse of the Soviet Union his reputation seemed utterly eclipsed, but now a new generation is reading and discovering Marx in the wake of the recurrent financial crises, growing social inequality, and an increasing sense of the injustice and destructiveness of capitalism. Both his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future speak across the centuries to our times, even if the questions he poses are more difficult to answer than ever.

Discusses varieties of Marxism, distinguishing between ideas that remain valid, those that are contestable, and those that should be discarded. Emphasises connections between theoretical debates real political struggles.

“In [D’Amato’s] able hands, Marxist politics come alive and leap before us, pointing a way toward a better world. It’s a knockout.”—Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States In this lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx, with historical and contemporary examples, D’Amato argues that Marx’s ideas of globalization, oppression, and social change are more important than ever. Paul D’Amato is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Socialist Worker, and SelvesandOthers.org. He is an activist based in Chicago.

Marxism and Social Movements is the first sustained engagement between social movement theory and Marxist approaches to collective action. The chapters collected here, by leading figures in both fields, discuss the potential for a Marxist theory of social movements; explore the developmental processes and political tensions within movements; set the question in a long historical perspective; and analyse contemporary movements against neo-liberalism and austerity. Exploring struggles on six continents over 150 years, this collection shows the power of Marxist analysis in relation not only to class politics, labour movements and revolutions but also anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, community activism and environmental justice, indigenous struggles and anti-austerity protest. It sets a new agenda both for Marxist theory and for movement research. Contributors include: Paul Blackledge, Marc Blecher, Patrick Bond,Chik Collins, Ralph Darlington, Neil Davidson, Ashwin Desai, Jeff Goodwin, Chris Hesketh, Gabriel Hetland, Elizabeth Humphrys, Christian Høgsbjerg, David McNally, Trevor Ngwane, Heike Schaumberg and Hira Singh.

The papers in this volume, first published in 1982, deal with a number of different aspects of Marx's ideas and the varying constructions put on them by later Marxists. Based on a lecture series, they examine Marxist views of the nature of philosophy, of history and historical explanation, the role and importance of politics, and of literature and the place of ethics. Among the Marxists considered are Lukacs, Sartre, Habermas, Althusser and Macherey. A continuous concern through the volume is the relation within Marxist thought of fact and value, with the implications that will have for our actions.

Marxism as an intellectual movement has been one of the most important and fertile contributions to twentieth-century thought. No social theory or political philosophy today can be taken seriously unless it enters a dialogue, not just with the legacy of Marx, but also with the innovations and questions that spring from the movement that his work sparked, Marxism. Marx provided a revolutionary set of ideas about freedom, politics and society. As social and political conditions changed and new intellectual challenges to Marx's social philosophy arose, the Marxist theorists sought to update his social theory, rectify the sociological positions of historical materialism and respond to philosophical challenges with a Marxist reply. This book provides an accessible introduction to Marxism by explaining each of the key concepts of Marxist politics and social theory. The book is organized into three parts, which explore the successive waves of change within Marxist theory and places these in historical context, while the whole provides a clear and comprehensive account of Marxism as an intellectual system.

A fantastic tale by the legendary Diana Wynne Jones—with an introduction by Garth Nix. Polly Whittacker has two sets of memories. In the first, things are boringly normal; in the second, her life is entangled with the mysterious, complicated cellist Thomas Lynn. One day, the second set of memories overpowers the first, and Polly knows something is very wrong. Someone has been trying to make her forget Tom - whose life, she realizes, is at supernatural risk. Fire and Hemlock is a fantasy filled with sorcery and intrigue, magic and mystery - and a most unusual and satisfying love story. Widely considered to be one of Diana Wynne Jones's best novels, the Firebird edition of Fire and Hemlock features an introduction by the acclaimed Garth Nix - and an essay about the writing of the book by Jones herself.

2011 Reprint of 1955 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In this work Sidney Hook, a distinguished scholar, examines the chief issues which have divided Marxists from non-Marxists, and Marxists from each other. This volume of exposition, comment and readings is offered as an introduction to the study of Marxism in conflicting theory and practice. A valuable collection of original source readings are provided, including "The Communist Manifesto," "Historical Materialism," "The Fetishism of Commodities," "Religion and Economics," and much more by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Kautsky, Trotsky and Luxemburg.

Originally published in 1982. Aside from Jacques Derrida's own references to the "possible articulation" between deconstruction and Marxism, the relationship between the two has remained largely unexplored. In Marxism and Deconstruction, Michael Ryan examines that multifaceted relationship but not through a mere comparison of two distinct and inviolable entities. Instead, he looks at both with an eye to identifying their common elements and reweaving them into a new theory of political practice. To accomplish his task, Ryan undertakes a detailed comparison of deconstruction and Marxism, relating deconstruction to the dialectical tradition in philosophy and demonstrating how deconstruction can be used in the critique of ideology. He is a forceful critic of both the politics of deconstruction and the metaphysical aspect of Marxism (as seen from a deconstructionist perspective). Besides offering the first book-length study of Derrida in this context, Ryan makes the first methodic attempt by an American scholar to apply deconstruction to domains beyond literature. He proposes a deconstructive Marxism, one lacking the metaphysical underpinnings of conservative "scientific" Marxist theory and employing deconstructive analysis both for Marxist political criticism and to further current anti-metaphysical developments within Marxism. Marxism and Deconstruction is an innovative and controversial contribution to the fields of literary criticism, philosophy, and political science.

The theory of alienation occupies a significant place in the work of Marx and has long been considered one of his main contributions to the critique of bourgeois society. Many authors who have written on this concept over the 20th century have erroneously based their interpretations on Marx’s early writings. In this anthology, by contrast, Marcello Musto has concentrated his selection on the most relevant pages of Marx’s later economic works, in which his thoughts on alienation were far more extensive and detailed than those of the early philosophical manuscripts. Additionally, the writings collated in this volume are unique in their presentation of not only Marx’s critique of capitalism, but also his description of communist society. This comprehensive rediscovery of Marx’s ideas on alienation provides an indispensable critical tool for both understanding the past and the critique of contemporary society.