Karl Marx: Grootheid en illusie: de biografie

by Gareth Stedman Jones

De 19de eeuw was een periode van ongekende veranderingen. Intellectueel, sociaal, economisch, religieus, technologisch – de uitdagingen waren groter dan ooit. Afstanden werden kleiner, steden groeiden en de nieuwe fabrieken leverden een golf van uitvindingen op. In de nasleep van de Slag bij Waterloo vond tegelijkertijd Europa-breed een debat plaats over de werkelijke betekenis van de Franse Revolutie en de hoop en angsten die deze had voortgebracht. Midden in deze discussie staat Karl Marx, de zoon van een Joodse bekeerling uit het Rijnland, een man die zijn hele leven zou wijden aan de studie naar de raadsels en paradoxen van de 19de-eeuwse wereld.

Gareth Stedman Jones neemt de lezer mee naar de wereld van Karl Marx en de ontwikkeling van zijn gedachtegoed. Als geen ander slaagt hij erin de mens en zijn ideeën begrijpelijk te maken. Met als opvallendste onthulling dat Marx aan het eind van zijn leven zijn geloof in zijn communistische theorieën verloor en Het Kapitaal niet wilde voltooien omdat hij meende dat zijn analyses onjuist waren – iets wat zijn vriend, medewerker en volgeling Friedrich Engels wist te verdoezelen.

Genres: Biography, History, Philosophy, Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

880 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2016

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like most biographies of Karl Marx, Gareth Stedman Jones' doubles as a doorstop. Thankfully, it reads better than it looks, even if it largely disappoints in its aims.

Stedman Jones wanted to write a biography that placed Marx within his 19th century context, separated from the image shaped by Engels and other post-Marx Marxists. To that extent, he was successful, carefully and sometimes painstakingly detailing political and philosophical currents that influenced Karl (it's always "Karl" rather than "Marx" for Stedman Jones, a familiarity that is unnecessary and distracting, no matter the reason for it).

But Greatness and Illusion seems more like an exercise in begging the question; it's clear Stedman Jones sees Marx's legacy as more illusion than greatness, but he rarely takes much time to explain why he feels that way. This is especially clear in a mangled and meandering final chapter and epilogue that were so unfulfilling that they drove this down to a two-star book.

Despite writing a philosophical or ideological biography, Stedman Jones feels obligated to provide the usual personal touches readers expect in a biography of Marx. Thus we have several uninspired diversions into his personal life, becoming increasingly cursory and disruptive to the meat of the book as we get deeper into Marx's career.

Perusing other reviews, it's clear that Stedman Jones approached Marx through his lens as a former Marxist. Polemic knows no fury like an ideology scorned. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but if I were going to choose a biography to read in honor of Marx's 200th birthday, I wouldn't have picked one I knew would be antipathetic, if not hostile, to its subject. It doesn't need to be fawning or uncritical, but someone more broadly sympathetic to Marx's aims and outlook would have produced a fairer, more coherent biography.

I learned a lot, and I don't regret reading Greatness and Illusion, but if you're looking to learn more about Marx, his philosophy and background, I suspect there are better biographies out there.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for two reasons: Sven-Eric Liedman's okay biography used this one as a whipping post, and made it sound very interesting. And, second, I read Gazza's essay tearing Lukacs to pieces, which was irresponsible, silly, and hugely enjoyable. Gazza wrote that essay, I assume, from a kind of Althusserian anti-humanism. He wrote this biography from a kind of anti-Marxism liberalism. Nothing is quite so productive for an intellectual as changing sides and lashing out at your previous love. Unfortunately, this one is nowhere near as irresponsible, silly, or enjoyable.

There's plenty of detail, and much of it is interesting and useful. The frame is ludicrous, though. One paragraph on page 241 is dedicated to telling us what Marx achieved: being the first person to systematically explain capitalism as a system; to explain capitalism as a history; to explain its concrete effects on laborers and others; to emphasize its effects on our subjectivity and desires; to reveal its revolutionary destructiveness (more famously described by Schumpeter). Most of the rest of the book is dedicated to explaining that Marx was somehow full of shit. Now, that seems a bit wrong. Do we really need a hundred pages detailing Marx's empirical failings as a writer for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung? That's useful, yes. But it's funny to read paragraphs like the one on page 241, and then realize that Gazza thinks Marx was a *failure*.

So, this book is great, because it isn't hagiographical. It is good on the shifts in Marx's own political positions, and it would be great if ultra-leftist types could read it and reconsider their revolution-or-nothing positions. But they won't read it, because of the idiotic satanographic framing that is somehow meant to show us the 'real Karl' instead of St. Marx. Probably somewhere in between.

Oh, and on Capital, Gazza is terrible. Naughty Gazza!

[Steve Donoghue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this gigantic biography that tries - hopelessly, but that's maybe inevitable - to present the flesh-and-blood man behind the walrus-bearded legend of Karl Marx. Here's my full review:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/boo...

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book does an excellent job of setting Marx in his original intellectual and historical context--a 19th century German idealism largely untouched by Darwin. The key argument here seems to be that Marx the man is largely different from Marxism, the latter reflecting the selective emphasis of Engels and the beliefs of a new generation of the 1870s. If anything the book seems to emphasize the Marx's limitations--the incompleteness of his account of capitalism, the very limited readership of works like the 18th Brumaire or indeed the Communist Manifesto at the time he wrote them, or his petty grudges and attacks. As Bakunin said, "There is no lie or calumny that he would not invent or disseminate against anyone who had the misfortune to arouse his jealousy or his hatred, which amounts to the same thing." I think it's hard to understate the tremendous impact of Marx's ideas, but perhaps this biography actually does that. Maybe the key thing is extending the idea that man created God to the state or the economy. Marx is his milieu is more about his jealousies and hatreds, and the book is more about that page-by-page; I think the important ideas do come through, but they feel like a secondary concern.

I don't know 19th century European history well, and I thought the book did an excellent job situating Marx in that time and place. I enjoyed the intellectual and historical background.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are asked to name a single person who had influenced the political economy the most in the twentieth century, it would undoubtedly be Karl Marx. Marxian theory, or what his followers thought he taught, directed the economic and political destinies of nations. The twentieth century began with the rise of Marxism through a revolutionary upheaval in the Soviet Union and it ended with the Marxist sun setting with the disintegration of the same country into as many as fifteen daughter republics. The man, who moved millions to a utopian goal he cherished so much, must have been an out and out intellectual. He was the foremost theoretician who directed the workers movement, but without being imprisoned a single time in the turbulent times of the nineteenth century. Marx was a man made up of energy, willpower and invincible conviction. For most of his working life, he and his family were reeling under grinding poverty which was alleviated to some extent by the generous contribution of his close friend Friedrich Engels, who was immensely rich. Earlier, scholars were patronized by kings who looked after their financial needs. In modern times, this role was taken up by academic Institutions, but a scholar like Marx who nourished ideas detrimental to the established political order could not have come under such a protective umbrella. This book describes Marx’s life in a peripheral way, with much of the volume dedicated to a narrative of how his ideas meshed with contemporary philosophical thought. Early biographers tended to offer descriptive accounts of Marx’s theoretical writings and preferred to concentrate on his life. This work pays attention to Marxian thought as much as or perhaps more than his life. Gareth Stedman Jones is a historian and Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary University of London.

Marx was an intellectual of the first calibre, but with all attendant human weaknesses such as professional jealousy, contempt of political opponents, ignoring the family in favour of his ideals and a possible adulterous affair with his housekeeper too. Apotheosis of Marx took place in the three decades after his death by clever propaganda of the German social democrats. Many of its workers were sustained by the idea that the approaching demise of capitalism was proved definitively in a book written by the great philosopher. Marx’s miserable poverty was assuaged to some extent in the late 1850s by working as the European correspondent of an American journal called New York Daily Tribune. This fact is also resented by some hard core leftists who find it shameful to conceive that their master was once in the payroll of a Yankee publisher. This argument does not take into account the intellectual worth of Marx’s articles and what the publishers were willing to pay for them. Jones describes another deviation in which twentieth century communism which pins on the indelible association between Marxism and revolution with a violent overthrow of capitalism and a leading role for the revolutionary party with more gentle theoretical concepts. The author attributes this to a selective reading of a small number of prescribed Marxian texts. In the making of Capital, he believed that workers in England might, by peaceful means, conquer political supremacy.

The book gives a general description of the social changes brought in by the French Revolution and a primer on the divided German political scene. The concepts of nationalism and religious tolerance developed with a grudging acceptance of the Jews for the first time in history. However, with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Marx’s hometown of Trier came under the rule of Prussia which re-introduced harsh discriminatory laws. This forced Marx’s father Heinrich to convert to Prussian Evangelical Christianity, in order to continue his legal career. Moreover, the Prussian King Frederik Wilhelm IV viewed the new Hegelian ideas popular among young intellectuals with growing suspicion. This denied an academic position to Marx even though he possessed a doctorate degree and diverted his career to journalism in the Rheinische Zeitung. Perhaps if he had had a comfortable teaching position, the history of the world would have been different! Marx always fell afoul of authority and had to move to France, then to Belgium and finally to England. The new Kingdom of Belgium resisted Prussian pressure to deport Marx, but he had to give an undertaking in writing of good conduct. He renounced his nationality at that time and remained stateless thereafter. The book gives a summary of the works of Marx when they are encountered in the narrative. This would have been harmless if the author had not assumed the readers to be fully familiar with abstruse concepts of philosophy and political economy. A large part of the book is hence rendered an uphill task for the ordinary readers.

The author presents some interesting information on Marxian concepts. The term ‘communism’ was coined by the French radical republican Etienne Cabet as an inoffensive substitute for the forbidden idea of an egalitarian republic. Radical republican societies mushroomed in the aftermath of the July Revolution of 1830 that introduced Louis Philippe as the citizen-king. However, the republicans considered the parliamentary monarchy, propertied franchise and laissez-faire economics of the king as a betrayal. Republican societies were outlawed in 1835 as a result. They hit back with a botched uprising in 1839. This explains the background of Cabet’s advocacy of the peaceful establishment of ‘communist’ society as something distinct from the republican. Jones is very liberal in including obscure theories in the narrative, but the tiresome exposition of the concepts of philosophy which were studied by Marx and other scholars is a nightmare to the readers. This hair-splitting description turns them away from the book.

The partnership between Marx and Engels was a very productive one for the workers’ movement and extremely beneficial for Marx’s family. Engels became very rich after he inherited the wealth of his industrialist father in 1860. Marx’s daughters requested money straight from him as he was almost like a father to them. Engels was the first to identify the revolutionary possibilities of modern industry and the place of the factory worker. There were occasions when the two had some issues between themselves. However, Engels’ tendency to defer to Marx’s intellectual authority smoothed out some areas of possible contention. Jones portrays the poverty of the Marx household in some detail. Anyway, there were also periods of plenty. When they had money, the family was extremely profligate. Marx never wanted to live the life of a member of the working class whose interests he was protecting through his writings. They rented expensive buildings and bought tasteful dresses for the women in the family and employed two servants. When the money was exhausted, they returned to poverty with stoic Indifference.

The two great events that exercised Marx’s political creativity were the 1848 Revolution and the Paris Commune of 1871. In the Communist Manifesto published in 1848, he combined a brilliant thumbnail sketch of the development of modern capitalism with a depiction of the contemporary conflicts between classes and its necessary outcome. The Paris Commune lasted for just ten weeks and was nothing more than a rebellion of the working class in which they withstood a siege of Paris city by royalist troops and conducted the internal administration on their own. Marx was immensely excited by both and expected the triumph of the revolution around the corner. Anyhow, within weeks the revolutions lost steam, driving Marx to dejection. He also founded the International Working Men's Association (IWMA), also known as the First International. Organisational work ate into his literary time and he could publish the first volume of Capital only in 1867. It was Engels who brought out the second and third volumes after his demise. Marx's diligence in publishing was exemplary. He rewrote many parts of the French edition of Capital when he felt that the translation was not up to the mark in these areas.

The discussion amply demonstrates that Marx's philosophy followed the gist of the time. This was a crucial transition period in which monarchy was beating a slow but inevitable retreat. When his revolutionary ideas were taking shape, the working class was very poorly remunerated and didn't have any right to vote. In fact, the concept of an elected legislature was still inchoate. Evidently, even a great visionary like Marx could not have foreseen the great changes the revolution of 1848 and the uprising of 1871 would bring about. With a stream of reform measures that continually relaxed the norms of franchise, a new alternative was opening up for labour other than armed rebellion. Jones hints that Marx was getting around to a concept of peaceful change, at least in Britain. However, the revolutionaries who came after his death was in a hurry to bring change at the flick of a switch, instead of waiting for a lengthy democratic process. In that sense, the entire blame for the precipitous collapse of communism should not be attributed to Marx alone. The greatness of Marx was his feat of thinking up a scheme to explain how the present political economy came into being. The illusion was his inability to see much beyond the present state of things and a lack of general optimism.

The book is awfully huge and the diction is not reader-friendly. You need to have tons of determination and patience to sail through to the end. There are 123 pages full of notes to clarify the main text. You need to have a very thorough prior knowledge of nineteenth century Europe and its political, social and philosophical terms to fully appreciate the narrative. The author’s hands-free approach in this regard is highly reprehensible. It was almost a sacrifice of one’s leisure for nearly ten days to complete this book.

The book is not recommended. Very serious readers may give it a try at their own risk.

[Dario Andrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ainda vale a pena ler uma biografia de Marx? Vale a pena considerando que o tempo é escasso e há tanta coisa a ser lida e que um livro como o de Stedman Jones exige um esforço considerável? Sim, a minha resposta é sim, mesmo que eu não seja um adepto das ideias que habitualmente são associadas ao pensador alemão. Além disso, é importante frisar, no Brasil há muitos que se dizem marxistas, mas que, creio, o leram muito pouco ou pouco sabem das suas ideias e menos ainda do contexto em que elas foram gestadas. A despeito de todos esses poréns, é preciso dizer que de uma forma ou outra Marx ainda continua presente no debate brasileiro.
Pois bem, eu gostei do livro. Tive a impressão que Stedman Jones fez um significativo trabalho de pesquisa nos livros e artigos publicados, mas também em outros documentos, como cartas escritas por Marx ou por seus parentes e amigos, ou ainda diários e outras fontes. Enfim, fiquei com a impressão de um trabalho de pesquisa bem sólido e consistente.
Alguns pontos são, é claro, mais frágeis. Não é estritamente uma biografia da vida pessoal e íntima. É claro que há elementos presentes, como, por exemplo, as relações familiares, especialmente as condições de vida bastante precárias – para não dizer miseráveis – que ele e família tiveram na década de 1850. Também o autor não alivia em relação aos preconceitos de Marx. É possível encontrar palavras grosseiras – que hoje são intoleráveis para nós – a respeitos de judeus ou negros. Sim, Marx era antissemita (apesar de vindo de uma família de judeus) e racista.
Ainda em relação à vida mais íntima, o autor expõe a questão da falta de dinheiro – Marx foi jornalista, mas com ganhos insuficientes para sustentar a família. Dependeu ao longo da vida – e com ainda maior necessidade na velhice – do dinheiro de Engels ou do dinheiro de amigos ou de herança de familiares. Há uma carta, por exemplo, em que ele escreve que aguarda ansiosamente a morte de um parente para o recebimento da herança.
Na dependência financeira em relação a Engels, é ilustrativo que uma das filhas de Marx – Laura – tenha cuidadosamente retirado das cartas do pai as críticas negativas que fazia ao amigo. Engels ajudava financeiramente toda a família e no final da vida de Marx essa dependência se tornou ainda mais aguda. Há, é claro, as referências ao filho ilegítimo que Marx teve com a empregada da casa.
Bem, esses aspectos estão presentes, mas não são o núcleo central do livro, que é, no final das contas, uma biografia intelectual, entendida como a busca – bastante ambiciosa – por compreender como Marx se encaixa no pensamento político e econômico do século XIX. Para tanto, o autor busca tirar as muitas camadas de interpretação criadas em torno de Marx desde sua morte e tentar recuperá-lo como um pensador alemão do século XIX, criado sob a influência de Hegel e do pós-hegelianismo.
Para atingir tal objetivo, faz uma análise da formação do pensamento do próprio Marx e sua evolução ao mesmo tempo em que ele lidava com uma atividade política bastante intensa. Pareceu a mim, porém, que a virada para a radicalização comunista na década de 1840 ainda permanece um tanto quanto envolta em névoas. Esse é um ponto cuja falta de claridade me incomodou.
De qualquer modo, o autor busca inserir Marx como um pensador do século XIX, envolvido nas lutas políticas socialistas daquele século, cuja formação se deu no período anterior a 1848. O Marx que ele descreve – e isso é relevante – não é o autor total, mas um sujeito que vai construindo a sua obra muito em razão do momento e das circunstâncias. Se ele se virou para a economia é porque ele – Marx – sentiu necessidade de encontrar uma explicação para o porquê do movimento de modernização social que estava acontecendo ao seu redor. O Capital, sua obra mais central, nasceu justamente dessa obsessão. Stedman Jones aí, é preciso enfatizar, é bastante claro em enfatizar as limitações do livro – o fracasso em oferecer uma explicação teórica ao capitalismo. A teoria do valor trabalho simplesmente não é algo que sobrevive ao teste da realidade. Além disso, o fracasso fora percebido pelo próprio Marx, que em certo ponto simplesmente abandona os futuros volumes planejados do Capital. Nos dez últimos anos de vida, ele pouco escreveu e abandonou o seu livro principal no início da década de 1870 porque, para Stedman Jones, Marx entendeu que chegara a um beco se saída, mas que admitir isso teria implicações ainda piores para a reputação dele.
O livro de Stedman Jones é importante ainda ao situar a atuação e o relacionamento – bastante turbulento – que Marx tinha com os seus contemporâneos socialistas, caso, por exemplo de Bruno Bauer, Proudhon, Lassalle, Bakunin e vários outros.
Por fim, gostaria de destacar o último capítulo: é aí que Stedman Jones trata da morte de Marx e o nascimento do marxismo. Esse último nasce em razão das necessidades do partido social-democrata unificado na Alemanha da década de 1870, que necessitava de um cabedal teórico que fosse aceitável em um país conservador e autoritário, como era o país então administrado por Bismarck. Ao contrário do que entendemos hoje, Stedman Jones argumenta que o marxismo de então não era revolucionário no sentido que entendemos hoje, ou seja, proponente da derrubada violenta da sociedade. Para ele, o marxismo gestado naquele momento – pelo partido e pelo anti-Duhring, obra escrita por Engels – defendia um processo evolutivo ‘científico’ do capitalismo, que ‘naturalmente’ evoluiria para uma sociedade pós-capitalista. Era Marx temperado com uma compreensão bastante enviesada de Charles Darwin, já que, ao contrário do que pensava o inglês, haveria um rumo necessário para a história. Darwin, é bom lembrar, defendia a aleatoriedade do processo de seleção natural. Pensando bem, esse marxismo está mais próximo do que hoje chamamos de design inteligente.
Enfim, um livro que vale a pena e que pelo menos para mim, iluminou muito sobre o pensamento político do século XIX e muito da discussão política do século XX e, por que não, até de muita coisa que vimos até hoje.
Por fim, um detalhe incômodo é que Stedman Jones insiste em chamar, durante todo o livro, o seu biografado de Karl. É chato e passa uma falsa sensação de intimidade. Nada que comprometa o conteúdo, mas é algo que poderia ter sido evitado

[Addri Bashar · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Karl Marx is stand for and How he made his intellectual journey, always a thought provoking thing and the author of this book made it very clear.Till date this is the best Bio of Marx and the author put an immense effort to put all things togather to recreate Marx,and penned how Marx shaped his world view.

[Jan Vranken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indeed the best guide to Marx. It helps when you have some knowledge of Hegel and the historical context (do 1848 and 1870 have any meaning?). Even if you already did read on and of Marx, this biography will greatly augment your grip on Marx’ life, activities and theory. Don’t let the info on the less agreeable sides of his character stand in the way.

[Tayná · Rating 2 out of 5]

Esse livro tem muitos problemas, e um dos principais é apresentar uma estrutura que foca em aspectos externos do Marx, deixando de lado o mais importante em um biografia: contar a vida de uma pessoa. O autor focou tanto em explicar como Napoleão fez isso e aquilo, o que um cara de faculdade do Marx fez, coisas que, para mim, não eram tão importantes, eu queria saber de outras coisas.

[Drasko Kovrlija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent retelling of Karl's life and work, but the dialectic-heavy chapters are hard to absorb

[Rjurik Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review written for a publication, but shorter version: good research but unremittingly negative assessments end up ultimately unconvincing.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a most impressive piece of scholarship. Although it is structured around Marx's life, to say that it is a biography does not do it justice. It is actually a most detailed analysis of how Marx's work developed in the context of political, economic and social change throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century and how he related to other thinkers and writers. The summations of the major works such as Capital, are very well done and the student of political thought in particular will find these most accessible.

The 'blurb' on my editions refers to the difference between Marx and 'Marxism'. This is brought out more subtly in the text than this statement would imply. As with many great political theorists, the interpretation of their work alters and develops according to the context of the analysis undertaken. Gareth Stedman Jones does not hammer this point hard in the book but rather allows the reader to draw these distinctions from a close reading of Marx's work itself.

The study of Marx is a deep and challenging subject but this book will help anyone get to grips with this important and relevant issue.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are better bios of Marx out there; ones much shorter and infinitely less tedious. Jones assumes the reader knows nothing about the 19th century and proceeds to inflict on us page after page of useless background information that any educated person nowadays would know-- did we seriously need 3 pages on Napoleon? Or 4 pages on Marx's wife's family genealogy? Jones is pretty damn conservative (probably why a third-rate publication like "The Economist" endorsed this book); but I confess I would respect a biographer who didn't come off as so overtly hostile to his subject.

[Sam Eccleston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually I commend detail and thoroughness in a historical account, but the flurry of dates, names, and short-lived revolutionary organisations which pepper this account of Marx’s life give it a convoluted feel and serve to obscure the main thrust of the narrative. So much detail is crammed in that vital explanatory passages are rarely forthcoming, so unless you are already deeply familiar with the historical context you can find yourself at a loss as to what is actually going on. Nevertheless the author paints a convincing, if rather unflattering picture of Marx which is worth imbibing.

[Peires · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sadly misconceived project. Stedman Jones presumably assumed that all that research in all those languages would yield something new. But too much erudition simply hides the wood in the trees. Taking a well-deserved break at the point where Marx leaves Paris for London, I reread David Fernbach's introduction to my old Penguin "Revolutions of 1848," and got more out of Fernbach's sixty pages than Stedman Jones' three hundred.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitive intellectual biography of Marx that situates him as a 19th century philosopher. Biggest complaint: author refers to Marx as Karl for 600 pages. It adds false intimacy which is particularly odd since, as an intellectual biography, it is much more engaged with his ideas than him as a person.

[Paulo Reimann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ain't an easy read

Loved it. Although heavy to read. No vacations or relaxing kinda reading. But puts a tremendous historical perspective, personal insights and reasoning behind Marx's magnanimous work.

[Cody Bolce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an exceptionally thorough biography that does a good job of tracing the development of Marx’s thought. I’m glad I read it, but a few issues:

1. The subtext of this book is that Marx was not actually terribly incisive and that his intellectual project was largely a failure. At times, the author gets into a specific theory or idea and shows that was wrong or that Marx had made some error. But often it’s pretty thin. For example, surprisingly little time is devoted to Capital. The author points out that Marx’s critique of Ricardo rested on a simplified version of Ricardo’s arguments that he later clarified and that he reads Ricardo differently in two separated chapters. But the author never lays out Marx’s analysis as a whole or explain why these issues are fatal. Nonetheless, he confidently concludes that Capital was a failure and that Marx didn’t develop a coherent critique of classical political economic as he intended.

There’s also the impact of Marxist ideas over the last 100+ years. The author mostly hand-waves this away by suggesting essentially, that the Marxism of the 20th century had little to do with Marx’s actual ideas. The support for this is pretty weak. The best the author can muster is saying this was mostly thanks to clever maneuvers by Engels after Marx’s death to turn his ideas into something they weren’t to appeal to contemporary audiences. This may be true, but isn’t very convincing. The later Marxists the author refers to undoubtedly read Marx’s work directly and it’s a bit weird to say “well they didn’t understand any of it correctly because they read something Engels wrote in 1889” or something.

Lastly, Marx’s theories were often flawed or wrong and the author does a good job in places identifying weakness in his thinking. But some of his work seems extremely poignant. For example, the Civil War in France seems pretty prescient and suggests Marx had a fairly strong grasp on the direction Europe was headed. The author doesn’t really grapple with Marx at his most incisive and instead mostly glosses over what seem to be genuine achievements.

2. This straddles the line between intellectual history and biography. While it largely strikes the right balance, it occasionally gets bogged down into parts of his personal life that seems like unnecessary detours. For example, I could have done without the extended discussion of the paternity affair. The author definitely does a good job of capturing Marx’s petty, vindictive personality, but I didn’t pick this up for a sketch of Marx’s personality and could have done without much this stuff.

3. Very challenging as biographies go. Hegel is one of the most challenging thinkers in the western cannon and nearly all the ideas discussed in this book are built on a Hegelian foundation. Early in the book, it’s easy to get lost in the theoretical debates between various Young Hegelians. You’ll need to read carefully and maybe do some googling. I know only the general contours of Hegelian thought and this was a struggle at times. I managed to get through it fine and learned a lot, but unless your well-versed in early 19th century German philosophy, this won’t be a breezy beach read. If you’re not interested in digging into this kind of stuff (fair enough!), I’d recommend something else. Likewise, the book assumes some basic knowledge of modern European history. You’ll find it much easier to navigate if you’ve got some knowledge of the world into which the author drops Marx.

Overall, the book is interesting and readable, even if it isn’t always super convincing. At worst, you’ll learn a lot about 19th century European politics, economics, social movements, etc.

[Marko Beljac · Rating 3 out of 5]

"But this only reinforces the point that the Marx constructed in the twentieth century bore only an incidental resemblance to the Marx who lived in the nineteenth." So ends Stedman Jones' biography of Karl Marx. The implication being that those labelled as Marxists bore an incidental resemblance to Marx. The flip side, left unsaid, is that the Marx of Marx's most vehement twentieth century critics also bore only an incidental resemblance to the Marx who lived in the nineteenth. It is not possible, therefore, to draw a straight line going Marx-Lenin-Stalin as was standard procedure in cold war era scholarship. Jose Peirats in his multivolume history of the CNT in the Spanish Revolution recounts a speech given in Madrid where the speaker stated that he takes from his Marx what is good, and discards what is bad. That is pretty much the only rational approach to take toward Marx. The usual approach is to dismiss Marx in whole, or to accept him as without fault. Both are highly unlikely to be true. This still leaves us with a problem; where was Marx good, and where was he bad? There's a close resemblance here to the question posed by Boris Souvarine at the end of his classic biography of Stalin. This is a question that has interested me for a very long time, and it is that interest that brought me to Stedman Jones whose biography was billed, in part, as a study of the relation of Marx to what is called Marxism. Stedman Jones at the end of the book does go into this, but not with sufficient detail for my taste, but that was not the authors quarry. Stedman Jones for the most part has Marx wrong. That's why I think it would be good to read Sven-Eric Liedman's recent biography of Marx - "A World to Win: The Life and Work of Karl Marx" - where the author has Marx mostly right. Read both and make up your own mind. One of the key areas where Stedman Jones has Marx wrong is in his dismissal of electoral politics, yet Marx's relation to parliamentary politics was more nuanced than Stedman Jones credits. Historical materialism is the central doctrine of what we call Marxism, and I still think Bertrand Russell in his "Practice and Theory of Bolshevism" had it best. The temper of enlightenment thinking should leave us sceptical about grand theories of history - sceptical as in reserving doubt, which is not the same as abject dismissal. Even so, we must be mindful of the difference between Marx and the Marxists that came after him. I can't leave this review without citing Stedman Jones' take on the massacre of the communards following the fall of the Paris Commune. "The commune ended in one of the most notorious massacres of the nineteenth century. This happened in large part because both sides were armed and the slaughter was understood as an act of war." This bears more than an incidental resemblance to the standard defence made with such matters since time immemorial.

[Brier Stucky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive, dense, and daunting account of Marx's life and thought. One of the primary functions of this book is to situate Marx in his day, as a thinker contributing to an ongoing debate rather than a lone, trail-blazing political theorist. Stedman Jones goes to great lengths to place Marx's ideas in conversation with those of his contemporaries, showing his influences and well as his differences with those around him. I appreciated this aspect of the book because it helped me understand how Marx came to formulate his ideas, but I also found parts of the book to drag. The result of this approach is a book that spends as much time describing the world and thought around Marx as it does describing his own work. Stedman-Jones should be applauded for his thoroughness, but his book is definitely not one for the average reader, such as myself, who is looking for a solid introduction to Marx's thought. While I still enjoyed reading this book in parts, I found myself skimming through sections of the book in order to find sections that pertained to Marx's ideas specifically.

I was particularly interested by the shift in Marx's thinking from abstract philosophical criticism of the West to his more practical critique of Western capitalism. His first phase of thought, heavily influenced by Feuerbach, focused on the sense of alienation and dehumanization felt by the modern states' separation of political and civil life. At this phase in his thinking, Marx seemed to be getting at something important about the way that modern people live in a bifurcated world, a world divided between worker and product, working and personal life, and public and private action. At this early phase, Marx was advocating for a return to a more integrated way of life embodied in the ancient Greek concept of the polis. While his sketch of ancient Greek life as a fully integrated way of life is surely an oversimplification, it remains a powerful critique of modern society.

While this aspect of Marx's thought never fully disappeared, at least according to Stedman Jones, his work became much more focused on economics and practical matters. Although I'm in no position to evaluate Stedman Jones' critique, he continually points out the deficiencies in Marx's economic thinking and his reductionist tendencies, favoring far-reaching and sometimes baseless economic claims over careful, measured ideas. Stedman Jones also focuses briefly on the differences between Marx's ideas and the Marxism of the 20th century, which he argues had little resemblance to Marx's actual ideas. I would have loved to read more about this drift, so I was a bit disappointed that it only occupied a few pages at the end of this rather long book.

[Barry Avis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was bought this book as a birthday gift back in June and have just got around to reading it. I am not sure whether the author has released this book as a biography of Marx or as a study of the philosophical and political climate that affected his work.
If it was published as a biography of Marx then it does not achieve that goal as there is actually very little detail about his life in this book I did learn some thing of his life but not in the detail I would expect from a biography and so in that aspect this book is not great and I would guess that there are much better biographies out there.
if this was intended as a study of the work that affected his writings it is somewhat more successful although I wonder why someone who clearly thinks that the Marx legacy tends more towards illusion than greatness would spend so much time writing a book about him.
The book meanders between the years, jumping backwards and forwards in a quite haphazard way where the reader finds themselves at one point reading about the political intrigues of European politics in the 1860's and then is transported back to 1848 time and time again.
If you are looking for a biography of Marx look elsewhere but for students of the political climate in the mid to late 1880's then you may find this book useful.
For myself, I am still looking for a biography of Dr Marx.

[James Coon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this book details the historical and intellectual currents that gave rise to Marx. Although much of that was familiar territory, I found it instructive to place it all in a single context. The passages about his personal life were interesting enough, but they were not sufficiently integrated into the whole of the narrative. This gave the story a choppy feel. Be prepared to spend many hours learning about the historical context and what would today seem to be arcane intellectual issues of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Having said that, the author does a good job of pointing out the deficiencies and logical dead ends in Marx's theories. He never completed Das Kapital because he realized there was no way for him to get from here to there.

[Sami Eerola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed and critical biography of Karl Marx that focuses on the philosophical and political events and ideas that influenced Marx's thoughts. The most interesting point of the book is that Marx's views evolved true time and that in the end of the day the Marx that we know today is mostly a posthumous construction that directly contradicts many of the men's late ideas about Communism.

The author is critical of Marx, but still the writing is impartial and balanced, focusing on showing how the writer came to his conclusion, presenting citations and quotes to back up his claims. This is truly one of the best biographies that i have read.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much a historian's biography, drawing on the latest scholarship from the MEGA project. Stedman Jones is very good at placing Marx's ideas in their 19th century context, showing the personal and intellectual differences with Engels, and bringing Marx's family life to the fore.

Some of the judgments though are a lot more tendentious than he admits. At one point, there is a claim that historians now only understand class as discourse and identity formation, whose only supporting reference is a single book ... by Stedman Jones. As such, some of the analysis betrays its origins in 1980s revisionism, which contemporary readers may be rather nonplussed by.

[Angel González Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro interesante, con mucho contenido del entorno histórico de la época en la que vivió Marx. Queda claro como este gran personaje histórico fue formando su pensamiento y como su pensamiento fue evolucionando.

No pongo una nota perfecta porque quedé con ganas de saber más de su vida, puesto que en este libro se enfoca mucho en el pensamiento y contexto histórico de Marx. Al comprar el libro esperaba tener todo en un solo tomo, pero aparentemente el autor no pudo llegar a eso.

[Bas Verberk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gestopt op blz 454

Lange tijd doorheen geworsteld, maar uiteindelijk is het toch meer een naslagwerk dan een biografie om lekker van kaft tot kaft doorheen te lezen. De informatiedichtheid is enorm en de hoeveelheid veronderstelde achtergrondkennis vergt een studie. Die -ismen, -isten en -ianen vliegen om je oren. Ondertussen krijgt het persoonlijke leven van Marx weinig kleur, dus toen de auteur op blz 450 weer een verhandeling over Hegel begon ben ik afgehaakt.

[Praveen Kishore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very deep and well researched book about Marx. It is not only about him, but also about the time he lived, the events that took place, and the broader social and political upheavals in Europe of his time. It is not only a biography of Marx, it is much more. Many pages and parts will requires good amount of concentration.

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

Más que una biografía de Karl Marx es una recopilación de lo que sucedía alrededor de el, las corrientes de pensamiento que lo rodearon y las situaciones externas y familiares que forjaron su forma de pensamiento. Un texto académico, no de lectura sencilla, pero complementario para entender la historia de Marx, aunque no por esto definitivo.

[Frank Ullrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written biography that tries to shows the real Karl and his ideas in his time. A figure stripped off all the pompous attributed to him by all the following regimes. If you are looking for a how-to on Marxism this is not your book.

[Matias Lista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Demasiado reiterativo, abunda en detalles teóricos intrascendentes. Tal vez demasiado erudito para mi. Sin embargo, en lineas generales logra esbozar la vida y penurias del Marx real y relatar parte de la historia de Europa en el siglo XIX largo y sus idas y vueltas entre revolución y reacción.