Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life - Rilegato

Sperber, Jonathan

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0871404672 ISBN 13: 9780871404671

Casa editrice: Liveright Pub Corp, 2013

Riassunto

Between his birth in 1818 and his death sixty-five years later, Karl Marx became one of Western civilization’s most influential political philosophers. Two centuries on, he is still revered as a prophet of the modern world, yet he is also blamed for the darkest atrocities of modern times. But no matter in what light he is cast, the short, but broad-shouldered, bearded Marx remains—as a human being—distorted on a Procrustean bed of political “isms,” perceived through the partially distorting lens of his chief disciple, Friedrich Engels, or understood as a figure of twentieth-century totalitarian Marxist regimes.Returning Marx to the Victorian confines of the nineteenth century, Jonathan Sperber, one of the United States’ leading European historians, challenges many of our misconceptions of this political firebrand turned London émigré journalist. In this deeply humanizing portrait, Marx no longer is the Olympian soothsayer, divining the dialectical imperatives of human history, but a scholar-activist whose revolutionary Weltanschauung was closer to Robespierre’s than to those of twentieth-century Marxists.With unlimited access to the MEGA (the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, the total edition of Marx’s and Engels’s writings), only recently available, Sperber juxtaposes the private man, the public agitator, and the philosopher-economist. We first see Marx as a young boy in the city of Trier, influenced by his father, Heinrich, for whom “the French Revolution and its aftermath offered an opportunity to escape the narrowly circumscribed social and political position of Jews in the society.” For Heinrich’s generation, this worldview meant no longer being a member of the so-called Jewish nation, but for his son, the reverberations were infinitely greater—namely a life inspired by the doctrines of the Enlightenment and an implacable belief in human equality.Contextualizing Marx’s personal story—his rambunctious university years, his loving marriage to the devoted Jenny von Westphalen (despite an illegitimate child with the family maid), his children’s tragic deaths, the catastrophic financial problems—within a larger historical stage, Sperber examines Marx’s public actions and theoretical publications against the backdrop of a European continent roiling with political and social unrest. Guided by newly translated notes, drafts, and correspondence, he highlights Marx’s often overlooked work as a journalist; his political activities in Berlin, Paris, and London; and his crucial role in both creating and destroying the International Working Men’s Association. With Napoleon III, Bismarck, Adam Smith, and Charles Darwin, among others, as supporting players, Karl Marx becomes not just a biography of a man but a vibrant portrait of an infinitely complex time.Already hailed by Publishers Weekly as “a major work . . . likely to be the standard biography of Marx for many years,” Karl Marx promises to become the defining portrait of a towering historical figure.

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Recensione:

"Jonathan Sperber's excellent biography succeeds splendidly in reshaping our image of the man and his thoughts." --Ian Kershaw

In what will probably be the definitive biography of Karl Marx for years to come, [Sperber] reminds us that Marx was a 19th-century man, his life much closer to the French Revolution than to the Russian. --Prospect Magazine

[Sperber] has given us a Marx for the post-Marxist age, a superb 21st-century biography that sets its subject firmly in his 19th-century context but also explains why his legacy continues to be fought over. --London Review of Books

Sperber seeks to understand and explain Marx purely within the context of his times [...] and he succeeds magnificently in this task. --The Telegraph

L'autore:

Jonathan Sperber, the author of The European Revolutions: 1848-1851, is the Curators' Professor of History at the University of Missouri. He has written extensively on the social and political history of nineteenth-century Europe.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Liveright Pub Corp
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0871404672
• ISBN 13: 9780871404671
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 648