The Place of Marxism in History

by Ernest Mandel

At a time when many repentant leftists are proclaiming Marxism incapable of explaining the new phenomena of the last quarter of the twentieth century, Ernest Mandel reminds us that Marxism drew from its very inception on the advances of all the social sciences and emancipation movements of its time.In a survey of the multiple sources of Marx and Engels' theory, Mandel identifies the specific contribution of the two friends in the various disciplines to which they applied philosophy, political economy, social history, revolutionary organization, self-organization of the working class, emancipation movements, and internationalism. Concluding that Marxism "constantly learns from perpetually changing reality" and that it is the conscious expression of the real movement of workers toward self-emancipation, Mandel proposes a formula which provides for a dialectical interaction between innovation and the verification of established tenets.

Genres: Nonfiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Ernest Ezra Mandel was a German born Belgian-Jewish Marxian economist and a Trotskyist activist and theorist. He fought in the underground resistance against the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium and he became a member of the Fourth International during his youth in Antwerp. Mandel is considered to be populariser of marxism.

Reviews

[Rebecka Häggström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gav en rejäl historisk kontext till marxismen: vetenskapen om arbetarklassens frigörelse.
Jag har aldrig läst ett politiskt manifest förr utan ska ju ge mig in på det kommunistiska nu, men jag tror inte den läsningen kommer vara lika svår som denna bok var. Det var sjukt mycket baktunga meningar, kändes som en bra övning och jag vill läsa mer sånghär, men det är tufft och ansträngande för mig må jag säga.

Detta är den första av mina 4 böcker som jag beställde från bokförlaget röda rummet.

[Nathan Crowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

written more from the point of view of propagandist, using repetitive terminology and phrases to attempt to sway opinion in place of facts or historical accuracy. 'a lie told often enough becomes the truth.'

[Chelsea Szendi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be really dogmatic. Better to skip this and dive straight into "Late Capitalism"