Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion Kindle Edition
by Gareth Stedman Jones (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 122
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 2017
'A deeply original and illuminating account of Marx's journey through the intellectual history of the nineteenth century... a profound reappraisal and a gripping read' Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers
As the nineteenth century unfolded, its inhabitants had to come to terms with an unparalleled range of political, economic, religious and intellectual challenges. Distances shrank, new towns sprang up, and ingenious inventions transformed the industrial landscape. It was an era dominated by new ideas about God, human capacities, industry, revolution, empires and political systems - and above all, the shape of the future.
One of the most distinctive and arresting contributions to this debate was made by Karl Marx, the son of a Jewish convert in the Rhineland and a man whose entire life was devoted to making sense of the hopes and fears of the nineteenth century world. Gareth Stedman Jones's impressive biography explores how Marx came to his revolutionary ideas in an age of intellectual ferment, and the impact they had on his times. In a world where so many things were changing so fast, would the coming age belong to those enthralled by the events which had brought this world into being, or to those who feared and loathed it?
This remarkable book allows the reader to understand as never before the world of ideas which shaped Marx's world - and in turn made Marx shape our own.
Read less
Print length
730 pages
Language
Product description
Review
This is a masterly instance of intellectual biography, sure to be the standard work on the subject in any language. Stedman Jones is the only biographer or commentator who successfully explicates Marx's intense engagements with his political milieux. Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion presents not just a rounded' picture of his subject, but an intelligible one.
About the Author
Gareth Stedman Jones is Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary University of London and Director of the Centre for History and Economics at the University of Cambridge.
Product details
ASIN : B01DVEZM04
Publisher : Penguin; 1st edition (25 August 2016)
Print length : 730 pagesBest Sellers Rank: 629,453 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)396 in Communism & Socialism (Kindle Store)
605 in Communism
1,031 in Political People BiographiesCustomer Reviews:
4.3 out of 5 stars 122
Top reviews from other countries
Amit Sharma
5.0 out of 5 stars Very thoughtful and terrific bookReviewed in India on 22 July 2021
Verified Purchase
Jones has analysed the Marx and his ideology in very contextual and philosophical ways and given a very balanced and deep views. It is truly a terrific book and best guide for understanding Marx and his ideology.
Report
shellylovesbooks
5.0 out of 5 stars Spidey Sense tingling -- Fascinating 19th c. history but gross anachronism popped up!Reviewed in the United States on 25 September 2018
Verified Purchase
Enjoying the Marx biography. That is, until I hit the following gross anachronism: "In Brandenburg-Prussia, there was a return to an Evangelical and fundamentalist form of Christianity..." (page 69) This observation (repeated on the next page) might not be an unforgivable sin. But for a serious historian, it might as well be.
"Evangelical" is OK.
"Fundamentalist?" No way.
Fundamentalism is a unique early 20th c. American phenomenon, almost a full 100 years after the time Jones describes. It's a bit like Marx driving a Model-T or flying in a Sopwith Camel. Is the author pandering to his audience? I'll keep reading. But my Spidey Sense is tingling.
[This review is actually from Shelly's husband, John]
6 people found this helpfulReport
Adam Carlton
5.0 out of 5 stars Immersive analysis of Marx's intellectual developmentReviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 September 2016
Verified Purchase
Everyone has an agenda with Marx. The Second International under Kautsky used him to justify its minimal/maximal programmes of de facto collaboration with the bourgeois state. Lenin and Trotsky used him to demonstrate unavoidable, terminal contradictions within capitalism and the necessity of violent revolution. Bourgeois writers distorted his words while left-liberals saw him as a much-maligned but benign genius, whose far-sighted humanity had been co-opted by extremists.
Gareth Stedman Jones’s response has been a deep, immersive dive into the history, politics and ideas which swirled around the contemporary Marx. For most of the book it seems that Jones – along with the reader - has become an invisible member of that small group of friends, colleagues and acolytes of ‘Karl’ as he lives his life from one month to the next responding to events. Jones appears to have read everything important in those debates and to be intimately acquainted with the detailed history of Western Europe and America during Marx’s lifetime (1818 – 1883).
The picture which emerges is much more realistic than the disengaged, omniscient oracle of legend. Marx starts as a classicist and aspiring poet with some legal training. Always political (the ‘Young Hegelians’), he is not at first interested in economics, much preferring philosophy, the subject of his PhD. In the 1840s he supports himself by radical journalism which was to remain his career through most of his life: it was not lucrative.
‘Capital’ was written in the 1860s, in London. Jones describes the major innovations which Marx introduced – specifically the clear distinctions between use-value and exchange-value, the concept of surplus value and the analysis of generalised commodity production as distinctive of capitalism. Here, the exploitative character of capitalism has been laid bare, while in the tendency of the average rate of profit to fall (through an ever-increasing level of automation - ‘constant capital’) a rationale was proposed for inherent limits of the capitalist mode of production.
It was here, according to Jones, that Marx ran out of steam. Although he had a decade or more of life ahead of him he was unable to resolve a number of theoretical problems. How was the abstract concept of exchange-value translated into prices as seen in the shops and on the stock exchanges? How did capitalism interact with the pre-capitalist world as it expanded across the world - what was the nature of the dynamic and to what extent was ‘imperialism’ forced by its very nature? How could we understand the distinctive incarnations of the capitalist state?
Whenever Marx was under deadlines to write up his analysis of these issues, promised for the later volumes of ‘Capital’, ill-health seemed to intervene – liver problems, headaches and those famous ‘carbuncles’. Jones suggests this was not an accident.
Marx was not incredibly famous during his lifetime. He was for periods notorious however - demonised by the press as a dangerous agitator in the aftermath of the Paris Commune of 1871. Meanwhile ‘Capital’ volume one sold well enough (one wonders how much of it was read, however). His real fame came posthumously when his views, as packaged by Engels, became very convenient – in a crude form - as a foundational vision for the influential German Social-Democratic Party (the Erfurt Programme). Things never looked back after that.
Gareth Stedman Jones has written a stellar book here, the scholarship immense. The reader truly feels present in Marx’s life and times. Jones shows how frequently Marx was wrong, tending to impose his ideas as a smothering straightjacket over the complexity and subtlety of political events. Yet he also showed more insight than many of his left-wing colleagues while his thinking was far deeper and more profound. We should also not forget that, in journalistic terms, he was a highly-talented writer.
I have a small quibble: Jones has scrupulously adopted an observational tone, with only small amounts of critical commentary on the more theoretical issues. I would have welcomed a chapter, perhaps at the end, where the author could have summed up what he thought Marx’s fundamental contributions had been - and more specifically, where he though Marx had been intellectually defeated.
Note: while this is an excellent book, it does presuppose the reader is actually interested in the intellectual debates and political disputes of mid-nineteenth century Europe. If you feel underwhelmed, for example, by the issues which so agitated the Young Hegelians, it’s unlikely that you’ll get past the early chapters.
Read less
47 people found this helpfulReport
Ann N. Michelini
5.0 out of 5 stars A fine biographyReviewed in the United States on 24 May 2017
Verified Purchase
Jones does a splendid job of placing Marx in the context of his times; he is able to show how Marx's ideas changed over time and how they were used and sometimes distorted by his heirs in the Communist movement. The rather chaotic domestic life of Marx is richly depicted without being allowed to overbalance a fair evaluation of this important thinker's contribution to knowledge and his struggle to master and to understand the history and economics of his day.
7 people found this helpfulReport
Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not recommended for knowing his writingsReviewed in India on 19 March 2018
Verified Purchase
Definitely not for a first timer. Talks about different philosophers of his time. It gives glimpses of each of their thoughts which is very hard to understand. Keeps jumping from one time period to another. Definitely not recommended for knowing his writings. Better understand / read das capital all 3 volumes. Or else it's literally waste of time reading the latter half of the book.
2 people found this helpfulReport
See more reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment