Review of Balibar’s The Philosophy of Marx

There are a number of difficulties in trying first to understand the thought of Marx and, second, in trying to convey or teach this to other people. The most obvious of these problems is the form and content of Marx’s own writings, which demand a degree of imagination and perseverance that not everyone is willing to provide.

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What Is Economic History?

Economic history is a branch of history that focuses specifically on the ways in which economic activities have been organized within a particular territory over a specified period of time, together with the ways in which people have sought to make a living and the management of government finances, trade, investment and debt.

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Review of Hobsbawm’s How to Change the World

 Despite the increased interest in critiquing capitalism as a whole inspired by the 2008 banker-inspired economic crisis, it has still been something of a surprise to see a new collection of essays about the history of Marxism by a venerable, veteran historian topping at least some best-selling charts. And yet this is exactly what happened with Eric Hobsbawm’s characteristically wise and considered How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism. This is a book that charts the progress of Marxism through the publication of the works themselves, the reception of those works and, in the third section, the rise and fall and possible rise again of the influence of Marxism on the political thought of the world.

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Marx: Ireland’s Revenge

From the end of 1854, Marx was persuaded by Max Friedlander to become London correspondent for the newspaper to which he himself contributed – that newspaper, the Neue Oder-Zeitung was perhaps the most radical of its time and, as a result, was often persecuted by the repressive quasi-militaristic regime in force in Germany (which was to become a familiar occurrence for Marx and his comrades).

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Marx: The English Revolution

In his essay The English Revolution, Marx was responding to the work of a certain M Guizot, who in 1850 published “Why the English Revolution Was Successful. A Lecture on the History of the English Revolution, Paris, 1850.” Guizot had been a minister in the French monarchist government that had taken the place of the 1789 revolution and suppressed the 1848 uprising.

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Marx: The British Rule in India

Marx wrote ‘The British Rule in India’ for the New York Daily Tribune (June 25th, 1853). It is in some ways a typical example of his journalism concerning countries he had never visited and about which he relied for knowledge on his extensive reading and his ideological and analytical frameworks.

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Review of Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Welcome to the Desert of the Real is Slavoj Zizek’s response to the events of September 11th, 2001 and was commissioned by Verso Books as a short work to be accompanied by responses by other well-known commentators, including Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio. It is subtitled “Five Essays on September 11 and Other Dates” and those who are familiar with Zizek’s work will be able to predict the character and shape of the book from this information. As is his typical methodology, Zizek combines often quite dense, Lacanian-infused psychoanalysis with cultural commentary informed by Marxism and Hegelianism.

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What Is Materialism?

Materialism is the belief that nothing exists beyond the physical reality of matter – there is nothing supernatural or spiritual beyond what can be measured or observed by physical means. This idea was expressed as early as the Greek philosophers Democritus and Epicurus, among others.

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The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential political works ever written, Its authors, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, completed it in 1848 with a title in its original German of Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, the Communist lays clear the prospects for political change in Europe and the ways in which Communists should act so as to bring about that change.

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Review of The Fragile Absolute: Or Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

Slavoj Zizek is a figure whose works divide people: it is not surprising since, in this book (reprinted as part of The Essential Zizek series) he identifies four poles to his system of thought–Hegelian philosophy, Marxist political-economic thought, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Christian theology. This allows him to draw upon wide ranges of schools of thought and fields of literature and to analyse them according to his particular methods–inevitably, therefore, drawing conclusions which satisfy, outrage, and amuse in various quantities.

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