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Marxist Social Thought
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May 18, 2020
This book literally took me longer to read than any other book I’ve read in maybe two years. It was long, but it was also a compilation of many other books chopped up and pieced together, so there was no overall narrative arc to keep me engaged. I don’t think I ever read over 30 pages in one sitting.
That being said, this was a very helpful compilation!! I definitely have a better understanding of how Marx understood the world after reading this book, especially in terms of his underlying philosophy (didactic method, materialistic conception of history, etc) that led to his more famous ideas (alienation, communism, etc). I still have my same qualms with Marx that I usually do, but I give this book 4 stars more on the grounds of it being a good compilation, rather than the grounds of Marx’s ideas.
I did experience one moment of disappointment during this book. Any time you’re reading a second hand compilation of ideas, you really have to trust the author responsible for repackaging the original writings and presenting them to you. The author must be neutral! And because Marxs writings are so esoteric and difficult to understand, catching one unfortunate slip up can really undermine a book. So, the author included about 2/3 of an essay Marx wrote about Jews as a social class in this book. I went and read the full essay and found that the 1/3 missing was basically the anti-Semitic part. This is quite generous to Marx! It made me feel like I needed to go find the full text of every book used to compile this book so that I could read them and make sure they were presented fairly.
Of course I could never do that because all the books contained in this book, combined in their full text, would be like 3000 pages. So even if there was a little bias, (and even if I think Marx was generally wrong in his prediction of history), I still really appreciated this book. It was helpful, comprehendable, and could potentially substitute for like a decade of reading Marx.
That being said, this was a very helpful compilation!! I definitely have a better understanding of how Marx understood the world after reading this book, especially in terms of his underlying philosophy (didactic method, materialistic conception of history, etc) that led to his more famous ideas (alienation, communism, etc). I still have my same qualms with Marx that I usually do, but I give this book 4 stars more on the grounds of it being a good compilation, rather than the grounds of Marx’s ideas.
I did experience one moment of disappointment during this book. Any time you’re reading a second hand compilation of ideas, you really have to trust the author responsible for repackaging the original writings and presenting them to you. The author must be neutral! And because Marxs writings are so esoteric and difficult to understand, catching one unfortunate slip up can really undermine a book. So, the author included about 2/3 of an essay Marx wrote about Jews as a social class in this book. I went and read the full essay and found that the 1/3 missing was basically the anti-Semitic part. This is quite generous to Marx! It made me feel like I needed to go find the full text of every book used to compile this book so that I could read them and make sure they were presented fairly.
Of course I could never do that because all the books contained in this book, combined in their full text, would be like 3000 pages. So even if there was a little bias, (and even if I think Marx was generally wrong in his prediction of history), I still really appreciated this book. It was helpful, comprehendable, and could potentially substitute for like a decade of reading Marx.
Displaying 1 of 1 review