The Ego Made Manifest: Max Stirner, Egoism, and the Modern Manifesto

by Wayne Bradshaw

From Karl Marx to Wyndham Lewis, this book examines Max Stirner’s influence on the modern manifesto. Max Stirner has long proven to be an elusive figure at the fringes of 19th-century German idealism. He has been portrayed as the father of the philosophical dead end that was egoistic a withered branch of an ineffectual movement, remembered largely because of its suggestion that crime was a valid form of revolutionary action. From this perspective, egoists subscribed to extreme forms of anarchism and defended acts of theft, assault, and even murder; egoism only held lasting appeal to rebels, nihilists, and criminals; and Stirner’s ideas could – and should – be consigned to the dustbin of history accordingly. The Ego Made Manifest argues that many of the accepted truisms about Stirner and his reception are false and that his contribution to modernist and avant-garde manifesto-writing traditions has been overlooked. Beginning with his influence on Marx’s Communist Manifesto , Wayne Bradshaw reinserts Stirner into the history of manifestos that not only rebelled against tradition but sought to take ownership of history, culture, and people’s minds. This study documents the trajectory of Stirner’s reception from mid-19th-century Germany to his rediscovery by German and American readers almost 50 years later, and from his popularity among manifesto writers in fin de siècle Paris to the birth of Italian Futurism. Finally, it considers how American and British interest in egoism helped inspire Vorticism’s satirical approach to revolt, and how, in an age of extremism, Stirner’s ideas continue to haunt the modern mind.

220 pages, Hardcover

Published October 5, 2023

Reviews

[Mitchell Chatfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think my review being around 3.5 stars is indicative of the manifesto bent. While the introduction and analysis of Stirner in the introduction and first chapter (focussing on Germany), I found the rest of the book — particularly regarding French and English topics — to be dithering. While a focus on manifestos invariably brings out splinter groups with floppy constitutions and divisions, the internecine discussions regarding control of early 20th century publications (Blast) or which French artist deemed themselves in which group did not sit well with me.

The German and Italian discussions I found to be remarkably interesting. Perhaps because of their direct political import, in particular in Italy for how the ideas morphed into various strands of national socialism and how such developments were a very selective pruning of Stirner’s work to brute force a given political outcome. Mussolini being a referenced figure certainly helped.

Towards the last 50 pages the book did feel a little lightly edited. Not for want of punctuation or spelling errors. Rather, a paragraph would end, and the next paragraph would almost exactly repeat that previous sentence — as if written between different sittings without review. In isolation, not an issue. But when written after a tranche dealing with some squabbling and apparently immaterial history, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

I think the book is still a good read. However the explicit manifesto focus did not seem to sit well with my interests, despite Stirner and egoism being squarely within the same.

[Nicole Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the global political situation as it is, this work is relevant now more than ever! History repeats, unfortunately.