Teodor Shanin, Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and the Peripheries of Capitalism

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Explores Marx’s attitude to “developing” societies. Includes translations of Marx’s notes from the 1880s, among the most important finds of the last century.

Stephen Resnick and Richard D. Wolff, Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy

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Intense debates in recent decades have provoked major new directions in Marxist theory.  Earlier reductionist notions of knowledge, dialectics, contradiction, class, and capitalism have been challenged and profoundly transformed.  Economic determinism has given way to new kinds of philosophic, social, and economic analysis such as the one Resnick and Wolff here develop around overdeterminism.  Showing that Lenin, Lukacs, Gramsci, Mao, and Althusser contributed concepts of knowledge, class, and society that can radically alter traditional dialectical materialism, the authors demonstrate how this alteration also transforms Marxist economic theory.  The dramatic result is a new Marxian theory, a new analysis of class, enterprise, and state.

Mike Wayne, Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives

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 From International Socialism,

"Mike Wayne’s introduction is one of the highlights of the book. Wayne summarises many of the key Marxist debates but takes positions. He argues against the pessimism of even soft versions of postmodernism and challenges the once fashionable post-structuralists who argued that texts write themselves, that cultural products are shaped unconsciously by institutions, history, subconscious desires and so on. As he says, ‘While the dominant version of authorship had rightly been taken to task, we cannot do without some sense of agency, collective and individual… There is no reason to suppose that authors of cultural texts are any less able to consciously shape meaning than academics.’"

Stephanie McMillan, Capitalism Must Die!

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This 248-page book uses text and comics to explain in simple terms what capitalism is, how it works, why it’s irredeemable, and what we can do to end it. Oppression, ecocide, inequality, and exploitation can’t be voted away or escaped. We can’t get rid of them through consumer or lifestyle choices. If you really want to end the atrocities, you need to join the worldwide fight against capitalism!

Part 1 of the book explains the economic mechanisms of capitalism, and why the growth imperative is built into it. Part 2 explains the kind of organizations we need to build and support, in order to have a fighting chance against this ruthless global system.

Throughout, cartoons make the points even more clear (and might make you laugh as well). (Please note: the cartoons in the print version are in black and white).

Rupert Woodfin and Oscar Zarate, Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide

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From Marx & Philosophy Society,

"Focusing on Marxist thought in particular, Introducing Marxism gives an overview of the historical development of Marxism, also using the words and ideas of important thinkers. To establish the importance of Marx, the book begins with the publication of one his most well-known works – The Communist Manifesto, stating that “the Manifesto left an indelible mark on human progress and still today forms the basis for a system of political beliefs that motivates millions.” (4) Following a brief account of Marx’s life, which highlights his early passion for philosophy, his life as a political agitator, and the importance of his friendship with Friedrich Engels, Introducing Marxism looks at Marx’s philosophical, economic, and political theories, including dialectical materialism, surplus value, and class struggle."

Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and The Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and The Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

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In August 1953, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. Over the next twenty-six years, the United States backed the unpopular, authoritarian shah and his secret police; in exchange, it reaped a share of Iran’s oil wealth and became a key player in this volatile region.

The blowback was almost inevitable, as this new and revealing history of the coup and its consequences shows. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the shah and replaced his puppet government with a radical Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the shift reverberated throughout the Middle East and the world, casting a long, dark shadow over U.S.-Iran relations that extends to the present day.

In this authoritative new history of the coup and its aftermath, noted Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian uncovers little-known documents that challenge conventional interpretations and also sheds new light on how the American role in the coup influenced U.S.-Iranian relations, both past and present. Drawing from the hitherto closed archives of British Petroleum, the Foreign Office, and the U.S. State Department, as well as from Iranian memoirs and published interviews, Abrahamian’s riveting account of this key historical event will change America’s understanding of a crucial turning point in modern U.S.-Iranian relations.

Rick Geary, Trotsky: A Graphic Biography

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Trotsky was a hero to some, a ruthless demon to others. To Stalin, he was such a threat that he warranted murder by pickax. This polarizing figure set up a world conflict that lasted through the twentieth century, and in Trotsky: A Graphic Biography, the renowned comic artist Rick Geary uses his distinct style to depict the stark reality of the man and his times. Trotsky’s life becomes a guide to the creation of the Soviet Union, the horrors of World War I, and the establishment of international communism as he, Lenin, and their fellow Bolsheviks rise from persecution and a life underground to the height of political power. Ranging from his boyhood in the Ukraine to his fallout with Stalin and his moonlight romance with Frida Kahlo, Trotsky is a stunning look at one of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers and the far-reaching political trends that he launched.

Leon Trotsky, An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe

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Whether calling for an end to the capitalist system, addressing the crowds after the Russian Revolution, or attacking Stalin during his years of exile, Trotsky's speeches give an extraordinary insight into a man whose words and actions determined the fates of millions. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Valentin Voloshinov, Freudianism: A Marxist Critique

Valentin Voloshinov, Freudianism: A Marxist Critique

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Freudianism is a major icon in the history of ideas, independently rich and suggestive today both for psychoanalysis and for theories of language. It offers critical insights whose recognition demands a change in the manner in which the fundamental principles of both psychoanalysis and linguistic theory are understood. Volosinov went to the root of Freud's theory adn method, arguing that what is for him the central concept of psychoanalysis, "the unconscious," was a fiction. He argued that the phenomena that were taken by Freud as evidence for "the unconscious" constituted instead an aspect of "the conscious," albeit one with a person's "official conscious."

For Volosinov, "the conscious" was a monologue, a use of language, "inner speech" as he called it. As such, the conscious participated in all of the properties of language, particularly, for Volosinov, its social essence. This type of argumentation stood behind Volosinov's charge that Freudianism presented humans in an inherently false, individualistic, asocial, and ahistorical setting.

Simon Clarke, Marx's Theory of Crisis

Simon Clarke, Marx's Theory of Crisis

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The theory of crisis has always played a central role within Marxism, and yet has been one of its weakest elements. Simon Clarke's important new book provides the first systematic account of Marx's own writings on crisis, examining the theory within the context of Marx's critique of political economy and of the dynamics of capitalism. The book concentrates on the scientific interpretation and evaluation of the theory of crisis, and will be of interest to mainstream economists, as well as to sociologists, political scientists and students of Marx and Marxism.

Vesa Oittinen, Evald Ilyenkov's Philosophy Revisited

Vesa Oittinen, Evald Ilyenkov's Philosophy Revisited

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On behalf of the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, it is a great honour for me to open the Symposium on Evald Ilyenkov. The Symposium is a joint project of the Department of Philosophy (Faculty of Arts), the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research (Faculty of Education), and the Alexander Institute. It is thus a multidisciplinary enterprise in a positive sense. The main effort in planning and organizing the Symposiurn has been made by Dr. Vesa Oittinen to whom we are all most grateful.

Evald Ilyenkov was born in Smolensk in 1924. He started his studies at the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in the University of Moscow. After the World War he continued his studies and defended in 1953 his candidate thesis on the questions of dialectical logic in Marx's economic works. From 1953 to his untimely death in 1979 he worked at the Institute of Philosophy in the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union.

Ilyenkov's study of the dialectics of abstract and concrete in Marx's Capital appeared in 1960. Combining his interest in the history of philosophy with contemporary debates, he published in 1968 his doctoral dissertation on “the question of the nature of thought”.

Ilyenkov's book on Dialectical Logic appeared in Russian in 1974, and as an English translation in 1977. In this work, he tried to combine the Marxist‑Leninist theory of knowledge with methodological questions about special scientific disciplines. In his posthumous work, he discussed Lenin's conception of materialist dialectics.

Ilyenkov's works had a profound impact on Soviet philosophy and his studies influenced also a generation of Western Marxism. Today Ilyenkov would be 75 years old. His voluntary death already for twenty years ago prevented him from seeing the decline of Soviet Union, followed in the Western Marxism by the flight back to historical studies in Hegel and eventually to disappointed postmodernism. I will not make any guess at the judgment that Ilyenkov might have given about the present state of the world. But during this conference we shall hear several assessments of the significance of his work and its continuing relevance. I am very impressed by the programme which includes papers both by Ilyenkov's close friends, his followers in the study of human actions, and his admirers in contemporary theories of language, semiotics, and aesthetics.

Coming myself from the Anglo‑Saxon tradition of analytic philosophy, I should like to make a personal remark. In the late 1970s I read an English translation of Ilyenkov's article The Concept of the Ideal, which I found strikingly similar to Karl Popper's conception of the World 3 of human social constructions. In 1981 I read a Finnish translation of Ilyenkov's essay on the genesis of human personality through concrete action and interaction with the material and social environments. Both articles defend very interesting views which are materialistic in an enlightened way but at the same time critical of vulgar interpretations of materialism. Ilyenkov's views on the development of human personality continued the great tradition of cognitive psychology in the Soviet Union. One can understand that his independent views gave emphasis and a voice to ideas that were not very fashionable in the Soviet philosophy in the 1970s but make him a most interesting object of study among contemporary philosophers and psychologists.

More generally, when the new Millennium is starting, it will be worthwhile and rewarding to assess and re‑evaluate the achievements of philosophers and psychologists who worked in the tradition of Marxist dialectics both in the Soviet Union and other countries. It is no doubt that their publications contain parts that strike us as dogmatic errors. But just like in the study of medieval philosophy, we are now able to distinguish the genuine philosophical ideas from the particular theologically or politically correct form in which they were dressed in the historical context. The symposium on Evald Ilyenkov is an example of such efforts of reconsidering the history of contemporary philosophy.

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig De Peuter, Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig De Peuter,  Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games

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In the first decade of the twenty-first century, video games are an integral part of global media culture, rivaling Hollywood in revenue and influence. No longer confined to a subculture of adolescent males, video games today are played by adults around the world. At the same time, video games have become major sites of corporate exploitation and military recruitment.In Games of Empire, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter offer a radical political critique of such video games and virtual environments as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and Grand Theft Auto, analyzing them as the exemplary media of Empire, the twenty-first-century hypercapitalist complex theorized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. The authors trace the ascent of virtual gaming, assess its impact on creators and players alike, and delineate the relationships between games and reality, body and avatar, screen and street.Games of Empire forcefully connects video games to real-world concerns about globalization, militarism, and exploitation, from the horrors of African mines and Indian e-waste sites that underlie the entire industry, the role of labor in commercial game development, and the synergy between military simulation software and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan exemplified by Full Spectrum Warrior to the substantial virtual economies surrounding World of Warcraft, the urban neoliberalism made playable in Grand Theft Auto, and the emergence of an alternative game culture through activist games and open-source game development.Rejecting both moral panic and glib enthusiasm, Games of Empire demonstrates how virtual games crystallize the cultural, political, and economic forces of global capital, while also providing a means of resisting them.

Wilhelm Reich, Sex-Pol. Essays, 1929-1934

Wilhelm Reich, Sex-Pol. Essays, 1929-1934

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This volume contains the first complete translations of Wilhelm Reich’s writings from his Marxist period. Reich, who died in 1957, had a career with a single goal: to find ways of relieving human suffering. And the same curiosity and courage that led him from medical school to join the early pioneers of Freudian psychoanalysis, and then to some of the most controversial work of this century—his development of the theory of the orgone—led him also, at one period of his life, to become a radical socialist.
The renewed interest in Reich’s Marxist writings, and particularly in his notions about sexual and political liberation, follows the radical critiques of Herbert Marcuse, Frantz Fanon and Paul Goodman, the political protest movements toward personal liberation in the present decade.

C. L. R. James, Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin

C. L. R. James, Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin

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Kathryn Dean, Jonathan Joseph, John Roberts, Colin Wight, Realism, Philosophy and Social Science

Kathryn Dean, Jonathan Joseph, John Roberts, Colin Wight, Realism, Philosophy and Social Science

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The authors examine the nature of the relationship between social science and philosophy and address the sort of work social science should do, and the role and sorts of claims that an accompanying philosophy should engage in. In particular, the authors reintroduce the question of ontology, an area long overlooked by philosophers of social science, and present a cricital engagement with the work of Roy Bhaskar. The book argues against the excesses of philosophising and commits itself to a philosophical approach more deeply grounded in the social sciences.

Jonathan Joseph, Hegemony: A Realist Analysis

Jonathan Joseph, Hegemony: A Realist Analysis

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Hegemony: A Realist Analysis is a new and original approach to this important concept. It presents a theoretical history of the use of hegemony in a range of work starting with a discussion of Gramsci and Russian Marxism and going on to look at more recent applications. It examines the current debates and discusses the new direction to Marx made by Jacques Derrida, before outlining a critical realist/Marxist alternative.This book employs critical realist philosophy in an explanatory way to help clarify the concept of hegemony and its relation to societal processes. This work contributes to recent debates in social science and political philosophy, developing both the concept of hegemony itself, and the work of critical realism.

Alan Woods, The Class Struggle in the Roman Republic

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David Riazanov, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: An Introduction to Their Lives and Work

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George Novack, An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism

 George Novack, An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism

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Marxism is dialectical, Novack explains. It considers all phenomena in their development, in their transition from one state to another. And it is materialist, explaining the world as matter in motion that exists prior to and independently of human consciousness.

Alex Callinicos, Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World

Alex Callinicos, Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World

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Something dramatic happened in the late summer and autumn of 2008. The post-Cold War world came to an abrupt end. This was the result of two conjoined crises. First, in its brief war with Georgia in August 2008, Russia asserted its military power to halt the expansion of NATO to its very borders. Secondly, on 15 September 2008 the Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. This precipitated a severe financial crash and helped to push the world economy into the worst slump since the 1930s.
Both crises marked a severe setback for the global power of the United States, which had driven NATO expansion and forced through the liberalization of financial markets. More broadly they challenged the consensus that had reigned since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989 that a US-orchestrated liberal capitalist order could offer the world peace and prosperity. Already badly damaged by the Iraq debacle, this consensus has now suffered potentially fatal blows.

In Bonfire of Illusions Alex Callinicos explores these twin crises. He traces the credit crunch that developed in 2007-8 to a much more protracted crisis of overaccumulation and profitability that has gripped global capitalism since the late 1960s. He also confronts the interaction between economic and geopolitical events, highlighting the new assertiveness of nation-states and analysing the tense, complex relationship of interdependence and conflict that binds together the US and China. Finally, in response to the revelation that the market is not the solution to the world's problems, Callinicos reviews the prospects for alternatives to capitalism.

Alex Callinicos, Trotskyism

Alex Callinicos, Trotskyism

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Perry Anderson,The Indian Ideology

Perry Anderson, The Indian Ideology

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Today, the Indian state claims to embody the values of a stable political democracy, a harmonious territorial unity, and a steadfast religious impartiality. Even many of those critical of the inequalities of Indian society underwrite such claims. "The Indian Ideology" suggests that the roots of the current ills of the Republic go much deeper, historically. They lie, in the way the struggle for independence culminated in the transfer of power from British rule to Congress in a divided subcontinent, not least in the roles played by Gandhi as the great architect of the movement, and Nehru as his appointed successor, in the catastrophe of Partition. Only an honest reckoning with that disaster, Perry Anderson argues, offers an understanding of what has gone wrong with the Republic since Independence. The "Idea of India," widely diffused not only in the official establishment, but more broadly in mainstream intellectual life, side-steps or suppresses many of these uncomfortable realities, past and present. For its own reasons, much of the left has yet to challenge the upshot: what has come to be the neo-Nehruvian consensus of the time. "The Indian Ideology," revisiting the events of over a century in the light of how millions of Indians fare in the Republic today, suggests another way of looking at the country.

Marcello Musto, Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy 150 years later

Marcello Musto, Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy 150 years later

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Written between 1857 and 1858, the Grundrisse is the first draft of Marx’s critique of political economy and, thus, also the initial preparatory work on Capital. Despite its editorial vicissitudes and late publication, Grundrisse contains numerous reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his oeuvre and is therefore extremely important for an overall interpretation of his thought. In this collection, various international experts in the field, analysing the Grundrisse on the 150th anniversary of its composition, present a Marx in many ways radically different from the one who figures in the dominant currents of twentieth-century Marxism. The book demonstrates the relevance of the Grundrisse to an understanding of Capital and of Marx’s theoretical project as a whole, which, as is well known, remained uncompleted.  It also highlights the continuing explanatory power of Marxian categories for contemporary society and its present contradictions. With contributions from such scholars as Eric Hobsbawm and Terrell Carver, and covering subject areas such as political economy, philosophy and Marxism, this book is likely to become required reading for serious scholars of Marx across the world.

Bertell Ollman, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in a Capitalist Society

Bertell Ollman, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in a Capitalist Society

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In this book, the most thorough account of Marx's theory of alienation yet to have appeared in English, Professor Ollman reconstructs the theory from its constituent parts and offers it as a vantage point from which to view the rest of Marxism. The book further contains a detailed examination of Marx's philosophy of internal relations, the much neglected logical foudation of his method, and provides a systematic account of Marx's conception of human nature. Because of its almost unique concern with helping readers understand Marx's unusual use of language, Alienation has proven very popular in university courses on Marxism on both undergraduate and graduate levels. The first edition was widely reviewed, and in this new edition Professor Ollman replies to his critics in 'More on internal relations,' published here as Appendix II. In addition to this new appendix the author now provides a more systematic discussion of Marx's theory of ideology, elements of which were formerly dispersed throughout the book. He also attempts to set the treatment of political alienation within the broader framework of Marx's theory of the state as a model of how an approach based on internal relations can be used to integrate various apparently contradictory interpretations of Marx's views.

E.V. Ilyenkov, Dialectic Logic: Essays on Its History and Theory

E.V. Ilyenkov, Dialectic Logic: Essays on Its History and Theory

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Tony Burns, Ian Fraser, The Hegel-Marx Connection

Tony Burns, Ian Fraser, The Hegel-Marx Connection

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A major and timely re-examination of key areas in the social and political thought of Hegel and Marx. The editors' extensive introduction surveys the development of the connection from the Young Hegelians through the main Marxist thinkers to contemporary debates. Leading scholars including Terrell Carver, Chris Arthur, and Gary Browning debate themes such as: the nature of the connection itself; scientific method; political economy; the Hegelian basis to Marxs' "Doctoral Dissertation"; human needs; history and international relations.

Hiroshi Uchida, Marx for the 21st Century

Hiroshi Uchida, Marx for the 21st Century

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This groundbreaking collection surveys current research on Marx and Marxism from a variety of perspectives. Setting forward an unconventional range of questions for discussion, the book develops key ideas, such as the theory of history, controversies about justice and the latest textual scholarship on The German Ideology. Written by Japanese scholars, the volume affords western readers a glimpse for the first time, of the results of many years’ debates and discussion.
Following the long tradition of Japanese interest in Marx, the book draws on the relationship between that and radical changes in local political context, as well as the economic and political development represented by Japan. Over the course of the chapters, Marx is rescued from ‘orientalism’, evaluated as a socialist thinker, revisited as a theorist of capitalist development and heralded as a necessary corrective to modern economics. Of particular interest are the major scholarly revisions to the ‘standard’ historical accounts of Marx’s work on the Communist Manifesto, his relationship to the contemporary theories of Louis Blanc and P.J. Proudhon, and new information about how he and Engels worked together.
This landmark work opens up a world of Japanese critical engagement and lively scholarship that will appeal to anyone interested in Marx and Marxism.

Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx & Hegel

Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx & Hegel

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Margaret Archer, William Outhwaite, Defending Objectivity: Essays in Honour of Andrew Collier

Margaret Archer, William Outhwaite, Defending Objectivity: Essays in honour of Andrew Collier

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Andrew Collier is the boldest defender of objectivity - in science, knowledge, thought, action, politics, morality and religion. In this tribute and acknowledgement of the influence his work has had on a wide readership, his colleagues show that they have been stimulated by his thinking and offer challenging responses. This wide-ranging book covers key areas with which defenders of objectivity often have to engage. Sections are devoted to the following:
* objectivity of value
* objectivity and everyday knowledge
* objectivity in political economy
* objectivity and reflexivity
* objectivity postmodernism and feminism
* objectivity and nature
The diverse contributions range from social and political thought to philosophy, reflecting the central themes of Collier's work.

Sean Sayers, Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes

Sean Sayers, Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes

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What does Marx mean by 'alienation'? What role does the concept play in his critique of capitalism and his vision of a future society?

Marx and Alienation deals in depth with some of the most important philosophical assumptions of Marx's work. It sets Marx's account of alienation and its overcoming in the context of the Hegelian philosophy from which it derives, and discusses it in relation to contemporary debates and controversies. It challenges other recent accounts of Marx's theory, and shows that knowledge of Hegel's philosophy is essential for an understanding of central themes in Marx's philosophy.

Marx and Alienation explains and discusses Marx's ideas in an original and accessible fashion and makes a major contribution to Marxist philosophy.

David McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings

David McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings

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This second edition of McLellan's comprehensive selection of Marx's writings includes carefully selected extracts from the whole range of Marx's political, philosophical, and economic thought. Each section of the book deals with a different period of Marx's life, allowing readers to trace the development of his thought from his early years as a student and political journalist in Germany up through the final letters he wrote in the early 1880s. A fully updated editorial introduction and bibliography has been included for each extract in this new edition.

Terrell Carver, The Cambridge companion to Marx

Terrell Carver, The Cambridge companion to Marx

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Marx was a highly original and polymathic thinker, unhampered by disciplinary boundaries, whose intellectual influence has been enormous. Yet in the wake of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism in Eastern Europe the question arises as to how important his work really is for us now. An important dimension of this volume is to place Marx's writings in their historical context and to separate what he actually said from what others (in particular, Engels) interpreted him as saying. Informed by current debates and new perspectives, the volume provides a comprehensive coverage of all the major areas to which Marx made significant contributions.

Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx

Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx

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Few thinkers have been declared irrelevant and out of date with such frequency as Karl Marx. Hardly a decade since his death has gone by in which establishment critics have not announced the death of his theory. Whole forests have been felled to produce the paper necessary to fuel this effort to marginalize the coauthor of The Communist Manifesto.

And yet, despite their best efforts to bury him again and again, Marx’s specter continues to haunt his detractors more than a century after his passing. As another international economic collapse pushes ever growing numbers out of work, and a renewed wave of popular revolt sweeps across the globe, a new generation is learning to ignore all the taboos and scorn piled upon Marx’s ideas and rediscovering that the problems he addressed in his time are remarkably similar to those of our own.

In this engaging and accessible introduction, Alex Callinicos demonstrates that Marx’s ideas hold an enduring relevance for today’s activists fighting against poverty, inequality, oppression, environmental destruction, and the numerous other injustices of the capitalist system.

Domenico Losurdo, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns

Domenico Losurdo, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns

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Available in English for the first time, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns revives discussion of the major political and philosophical tenets underlying contemporary liberalism through a revolutionary interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s thought. Domenico Losurdo, one of the world’s leading Hegelians, reveals that the philosopher was fully engaged with the political controversies of his time. In so doing, he shows how the issues addressed by Hegel in the nineteenth century resonate with many of the central political concerns of today, among them questions of community, nation, liberalism, and freedom. Based on an examination of Hegel’s entire corpus—including manuscripts, lecture notes, different versions of texts, and letters—Losurdo locates the philosopher’s works within the historical contexts and political situations in which they were composed.

Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns persuasively argues that the tug of war between “conservative” and “liberal” interpretations of Hegel has obscured and distorted the most important aspects of his political thought. Losurdo unravels this misleading dualism and provides an illuminating discussion of the relation between Hegel’s political philosophy and the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also discusses Hegel’s ideas in relation to the pertinent writings of other major figures of modern political philosophy such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Popper, Norberto Bobbio, and Friedrich Hayek.