Description
Book SynopsisIn this ambitious and original study, Stathis Kouvelakis paints a rich panorama of the key intellectual and political figures in the effervescence of German thought before the 1848 revolutions. He shows how the attempt to chart a moderate, reformist path entered into crisis, generating two antagonistic perspectives within the progressive currents of German society. On one side were those socialists - such as Moses Hess and the young Friedrich Engels - who sought to discover a principle of harmony in social relations. On the other side, the poet Heinrich Heine and the young Karl Marx developed a new perspective, articulating revolutionary rupture, thereby redefining the very notion of politics itself.
This new edition of the book includes a long interview with Kouvelakis which puts the work in context.
Trade ReviewQuite simply the best study of the 'young Marx' (pre-1848) and his immediate predecessors I have ever read. -- Tony Smith * Science and Society *
Perhaps the first truly original new version of Marx's formation since Auguste Cornu's monumental postwar history but also a new theory of what is structurally most central and distinctive inMarx's achievement, namely the unique political nature and powers of the proletariat. -- Fredric Jameson
