Karl Marx in America

by Andrew Hartman

The vital and untold story of Karl Marx’s stamp on American life.
 
To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of people to formulate a more precise sense of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life.
 
In Karl Marx in America, historian Andrew Hartman argues that even though Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been infused, shaped, and transformed by him. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as an antidote to the unchecked power of corporations. In the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in hopes of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. The young activists of the 1960s were inspired by Marx as they gathered to protest an overseas war. Marx’s influence today is evident, too, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power.
 
After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx’s ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx’s influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society.
 

Genres: History, Philosophy, Politics, American History, The United States Of America, Economics

600 pages, Hardcover

Published May 29, 2025

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of the appropriation of Marx and Marxisms in the political and intellectual life of the USA covers the period from our civil war to the present. As such, much was familiar to me and the book served as a reacquaintance with authors and publications, but there was also quite a bit of reference to materials and movements I had not previously dealt with.

Hartman writes well. The reading went quickly and comfortably. My only complaints are as regards topics and persons I think deserve more attention than he proffered. For instance, Noam Chomsky is mentioned only once, and glancingly. More importantly, World War Two and its consequences for the American and global economies is barely addressed. So, too, are the putatively 'actually existing socialisms' of other countries, particularly Cuba. Still, the book was a pleasant review of a vast subject.

[Caleb Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great examination of Karl Marx’s undying influence on American ideological debates.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a worthy successor to Paul Buhle's 1987 book Marxism in America, Hartman's book uses the history of Marx's reception in the U.S.--from socialists, communists, anarchists and labor radicals to liberals and arch-conservatives--to provide a fresh and invigorating account of the long battle to define freedom in this country. The book is a model of clear writing, and a good example of "wearing learning lightly," as Hartman synthesizes a vast body of scholarship in a readable and often entertaining narrative. I hope that the book will make both Marx's critics and his sympathizers better-informed. And I hope the latter will not only use it to interpret the world, but to change it.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Hartman presents a thorough look at the effect Karl Marx has had on America, his work, views, and philosophy, along with the misunderstanding, fear, and attempts to destroy that view. The bibliography for the book is extensive, and Dr Hartman weaves his way through the detail and minutia that helps to explain the broad and significant macro. It is a worthy read and casts many of the trends and responses in a new light. I wish this book had been available 40 years ago.

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks had how Karl Marx was viewed during and after the U.S. Civil War. The many players within and outside of Marxism. Andres Hartman had done a magnificent job of looking at and understanding Marx.

This is also a look at American history, but through the eyes of intellectual history at how Marx is viewed.