![]() Cover of the 1959 edition | |
Author | Isaiah Berlin |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Subject | Karl Marx |
Publisher | Thornton Butterworth |
Publication date | 1939 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
Pages | 222 (1995 edition) |
ISBN | 978-0195103267 |
Karl Marx: His Life and Environment is a 1939 biography of the philosopher Karl Marx by the historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin. [1]
In a 1995 interview with Michael Ignatieff, first broadcast on BBC Two in November 1997, after his death, Berlin described how he came to write the book:
When I was first asked to do it…I read far more Marx that will ever be good for anyone else to read again…. He was pompous, heavy, highly intelligent, made heavy German jokes, quite good, rather a bully, of a rather impressive kind. You felt you were in the presence of an intellectually powerful figure who wanted to dictate to one, didn’t terribly want to know what one thought, wanted you to know what he thought. [2]
The book charts the chief phases of Marx’ life, and renders his ideas ‘with a sympathetic grasp both of it subject’s motives and his limitations’. [3]
The historian Peter Gay wrote that Karl Marx: His Life and Environment is one of the best discussions of alienation in the literature on Marx and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and among such accounts, distinguished by its lucidity. [4] Berlin's style of writing has been praised by the political scientist David McLellan, [1] and the philosopher John Gray. [5]
Some editions of this book in English, includes reprints are these:
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He married German theatre critic and political activist Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the British Museum Reading Room. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory.
Friedrich Engels, sometimes anglicised as Frederick Engels, was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, historian, political theorist and revolutionary socialist. He was also a businessman, journalist and political activist, whose father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford and Barmen, Prussia.
Sir Isaiah Berlin was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.
David McLellan is an English scholar of Karl Marx and Marxism. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford University.
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Heinrich Marx was a lawyer and the father of the revolutionary leader and influential socialist thinker Karl Marx.
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Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power and History is a 1984 book about the philosopher Karl Marx by the political philosopher Richard W. Miller.
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Karl Marx: His Life and Thought is a 1973 biography of Karl Marx by the political scientist David McLellan. The work was republished as Karl Marx: A Biography in 1995.
Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence is a 1978 book by the philosopher G. A. Cohen, the culmination of his attempts to reformulate Karl Marx's doctrines of alienation, exploitation, and historical materialism. Cohen, who interprets Marxism as a scientific theory of history, applies the techniques of analytic philosophy to the elucidation and defence of Marx's materialist conception of history.
Gerald Allan Cohen, known as G. A. Cohen or Jerry Cohen, was a Canadian political philosopher who held the positions of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford. He was known for his work on Marxism, and later, egalitarianism and distributive justice in normative political philosophy.
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The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie is an unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks was rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes of self-clarification, during the winter of 1857–8. Left aside by Marx in 1858, it remained unpublished until 1939.
History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which the author re-emphasizes the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on the philosopher Karl Marx, analyzes the concept of "class consciousness," and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism.
Anti-Dühring is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1878. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper Vorwärts. There were two further German editions in Engels' lifetime. Anti-Dühring was first published in English translation in 1907.
Karl Marx was a German Jew philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Marx's work in economics laid the basis for the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and has influenced much of subsequent economic thought. He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto. Marx studied at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. He moved to Paris in 1843, where he began writing for other radical newspapers and met Fredrick Engels, who would become his lifelong friend and collaborator. In 1845 he was exiled and moved to London together with his wife and children where he continued writing and formulating his theories about social and economic activity. He also campaigned for socialism and became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier to a middle-class family, he later studied political economy and Hegelian philosophy. For a general review of Karl Marx biographies, see the article "Two Centuries of Karl Marx Biographies: An Overview" by Angelo Segrillo.
Henriette Pressburg later on marriage, Henriette Marx, was the mother of the communist philosopher and economist Karl Marx.