Commentary

[in chronological order]

Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life

- Sperber, Jonathan. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life. New York: Liveright, 2013.
From the Publisher: “Karl Marx is a magisterial and defining biography that vividly explores not only the man himself but also the revolutionary times in which he lived. Between his birth in 1818 and his death sixty-five years later, Karl Marx became… More

The Open Society and Its Enemies

- Popper, Karl. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.
From the Publisher: ” One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of… More

Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital

- Chibber, Vivek. Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. New York: Verso, 2013.
From the Publisher: “Postcolonial theory has become enormously influential as a framework for understanding the Global South. It is also a school of thought popular because of its rejection of the supposedly universalizing categories of the… More

Marxism in the United States: A History of the American Left

- Buhle, Paul. Marxism in the United States: A History of the American Left, New York: Verso, 2013.
From the Publisher: “A crown jewel of New Left historiography, this overview of U.S. Marxism was hailed on its first publication for its nuanced storytelling, balance and incredible sweep. Brimming over with archival finds and buoyed by the… More

How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism

- Hobsbawm, Eric. How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.
From the Publisher: “In the 144 years since Karl Marx’s Das Kapital was published, the doctrine that bears his name has been embraced by millions in the name of equality, and just as dramatically has fallen from grace with the retreat of communism… More

From Marxism to Post-Marxism?

- Therborn, Göran. From Marxism to Post-Marxism? London: Verso, 2010.
From the Publisher: “In this pithy and panoramic work—both stimulating for the specialist and accessible to the general reader—one of the world’s leading social theorists, Göran Therborn, traces the trajectory of Marxism in the twentieth century… More

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

- Lenin, Vladimir Il’ich. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. London: Penguin, 2010.
From the Publisher: “2011 Reprint of 1939 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, by Lenin, describes the function of financial… More

Introduction to Marx’s Capital

- Harvey, David. A Companion to Marx’s Capital. New York: Verso, 2010.
From the Publisher: ““My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…” The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has generated a surge of interest in Marx’s work in… More

The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

- Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. London; New York: Penguin Classics, 2010.
Excerpt: “The following chapters are, in a sense, the execution of a bequest. No less a man than Karl Marx had made it one of his future tasks to present the results of Morgan’s researches in the light of the conclusions of his own — within certain… More
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Major Works

Das Kapital (Capital) 1867 – 1894

- Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin Books, 1990. ———. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 2. Translated by David Fernbach. London: Penguin Books, 1992. ———. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 3. Translated by David Fernbach. London: Penguin Books, 1992.
Excerpt: The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities,’ its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of… More

The Marx-Engels Reader

- Marx, Karl. The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.
Tucker’s collection remains the best single-volume introduction to Marx’s thought. It provides complete versions of key texts such as the anti-Semitic but revealing On the Jewish Question, The Communist Manifesto, as well as excerpts of longer… More

Multimedia

Visions of Utopia

- Lecture series by Prof. Fred Baumann, Kenyon College. Marx discussed in lectures eleven and twelve.

Other Works

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

- Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marxists.org.
Excerpt: “Hegel remarks somewhere[*] that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the… More

Theses on Feuerbach (1845)

- Marx, Karl. Theses on Feuerbach. Marxists.org.
Excerpt: “The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object[Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung],… More

On the Jewish Question (1844)

- Marx, Karl. On the Jewish Question. Marxists.org.
Excerpt: “The German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they desire? Civic, political emancipation. Bruno Bauer replies to them: No one in Germany is politically emancipated. We ourselves are not free. How are we to free you? You… More

Critique of the Gotha Program (1875)

- Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha Program. Marxists.org.
“First part of the paragraph: “Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture.” Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor,… More

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

- Marx, Karl. Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Marxists.org.
“For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism. The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [“speech… More

The Communist Manifesto: With Seven Rare Prefaces (1848)

- Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto: With Seven Rare Prefaces. Samuel Moore, trans. World Library Classics, 2009.
Excerpt: “The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to… More

Marx on Religion

- Marx, Karl. Marx on Religion. John Raines, ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

The German Ideology: Including Theses on Feuerbach and Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy (1845)

- Marx, Karl. The German Ideology: Including Theses on Feuerbach and Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998.
Excerpt: “As we hear from German ideologists, Germany has in the last few years gone through an unparalleled revolution. The decomposition of the Hegelian philosophy, which began with Strauss, has developed into a universal ferment into which all the… More
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