Tag: history
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‘For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor’ by Slavoj Žižek
For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor by Slavoj Žižek is a dazzling interrogation of ideology, enjoyment, and the political deadlocks of modernity. In this monumental work, Žižek builds upon a provocative premise: the combination of ignorance and enjoyment is not merely incidental to ideological discourse but is foundational to…
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The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition
The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition edited by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar is a work of immense significance, rigor, and philosophical import. It transcends the narrow confines of conventional historiography by resurrecting and critically examining the contributions of women philosophers who shaped, challenged, and extended the philosophical currents of…
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Value, Money and Capital: The Critique of Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism
In Value, Money and Capital: The Critique of Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism, Guido Starosta, Gastón Caligaris, and Alejandro Fitzsimons re-examine the core tenets in Marx’s theory, offering a critical intervention into the field of political economy and the study of contemporary capitalism. The book serves as both a painstaking theoretical reconstruction and a contemporary…
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Capitalism in the Age of Catastrophe: The Newest Developments of Financial Capital in Times of Polycrisis
Achim Szepanski’s Capitalism in the Age of Catastrophe: The Newest Developments of Financial Capital in Times of Polycrisis is a searing philosophical interrogation of the late-capitalist world system as it collides with an era of unprecedented crises. Rooted in an intricate synthesis of Marxist economic analysis and the radical critiques of Georges Bataille and Jean…
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Essays on Marx’s Capital: Summaries, Appreciations and Reconstructions
Geert Reuten’s Essays on Marx’s Capital: Summaries, Appreciations and Reconstructions is an erudite, detailed exploration of Karl Marx’s magnum opus Capital. This collection of 21 essays, written between 1991 and 2019, illuminates the intricacies of Marx’s systematic-dialectical method and the monetary value-form analysis that undergirds his critique of political economy. Reuten’s work does not merely…
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The Ages of the World (1811)
This extraordinary volume presents the earliest existing draft of F. W. J. Schelling’s The Ages of the World (Die Weltalter) from 1811, translated and introduced by Joseph P. Lawrence. It is a document of immeasurable significance for those who would understand not just Schelling’s philosophical evolution and the epoch of German Idealism, but also the…
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Tyranny and Revolution: Rousseau to Heidegger
Waller R. Newell’s Tyranny and Revolution: Rousseau to Heidegger invites the reader into a vast intellectual landscape stretching from the twilight of the ancient world to the cataclysms of twentieth-century totalitarianism and beyond. In its scope, it captures the restless efforts of modern philosophers, beginning with Rousseau, to restore a sense of integral community and…
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Tariq Ali’s The Lenin Scenario
Within the pages of The Lenin Scenario, Tariq Ali ventures into historical imagination with extraordinary rigor, constructing a scenario as lucid in its detail as it is alive in its philosophical implications. What we encounter here is no mere screenplay, no ordinary chronology of events, but a painstakingly accurate dramatic blueprint for the cinematic interpretation…
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Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study
This book is an inquiry into the development between Lenin’s wartime philosophical notebooks on Hegel and the broader trajectory of Marxist thought, stretching from the crisis of the Second International through to debates in Western Marxism that reached well beyond Lenin’s own historical moment. In Kevin Anderson’s Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study,…
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: A Propaedeutic
Thomas Sören Hoffmann’s Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: A Propaedeutic is a monumental intellectual biography that goes deeply into the dense philosophy of Hegel, the master philosopher of German idealism and the last great system builder of European philosophy. Hoffmann offers a comprehensive exploration of Hegel’s thought, working through all the major themes that define his…
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Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia Logic
Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia Logic by Julie E. Maybee is a groundbreaking work that breathes new life into G.W.F. Hegel’s notoriously dense and challenging Encyclopaedia Logic. Maybee created an ambitious project to demystify Hegel’s philosophical system by employing diagrams and illustrations, offering a novel approach that caters to both newcomers and…
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Hegel’s Shorter Logic: An Introduction and Commentary
Hegel’s Shorter Logic: An Introduction and Commentary by John Grier Hibben and Eric v.d. Luft is a monumental contribution to Hegelian scholarship, offering an in-depth exploration of Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic. Since its original publication in 1902, Hibben’s work has been celebrated for its clarity and insightful interpretation of Hegel’s philosophical system. This revised edition, significantly…
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Hegel: Political Writings
Hegel: Political Writings, edited by Lawrence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet, is an indispensable volume that offers a presentation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s political philosophy beyond his renowned Philosophy of Right. This collection gathers Hegel’s most significant political writings, providing readers with unparalleled access to both the practical and metaphysical dimensions of his thought.…
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Heidegger’s Way of Being
Richard Capobianco’s Heidegger’s Way of Being is an exposition of Martin Heidegger’s lifelong philosophical focus on the nature of Being. In this ambitious follow-up to Engaging Heidegger, Capobianco makes a compelling case for understanding Heidegger’s work as a unified endeavor to elucidate Being as the temporal and radiant emergence of all beings. By combining insights…
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Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I
Hubert L. Dreyfus’s Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I is an analysis of one of the most significant and challenging texts of 20th-century philosophy. Dreyfus not only engages with the core of Heidegger’s Being and Time, a work that transformed philosophical thought upon its publication in 1927, but also provides a…
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Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917
Marcel van der Linden’s Western Marxism and the Soviet Union is an exhaustive, rigorous examination of the theoretical responses within Western Marxism to the Soviet Union’s evolution from its inception through the Cold War and beyond. The “Russian Question”—the ideological, economic, and political nature of Soviet society—was central to the larger Marxist dialogue, compelling intellectuals…
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Karl Korsch: A Study in Western Marxism
Karl Korsch: A Study in Western Marxism by Patrick Goode provides an analysis of Karl Korsch’s intellectual journey, his engagement with revolutionary Marxism, and his unique contribution to Marxist theory within the context of 20th-century European politics. This study explores Korsch’s revolutionary praxis, particularly his belief that Marxism is not merely an interpretative framework for…
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The Breakdown of Capitalism: A History of the Idea in Western Marxism, 1883-1983
F.R. Hansen’s The Breakdown of Capitalism: A History of the Idea in Western Marxism, 1883-1983 offers a richly layered and deeply critical examination of the complex intellectual tradition surrounding the theories of capitalism’s breakdown within Western Marxist thought. Written in 1985, Hansen’s work situates itself as both a historical study and a philosophical investigation, tracing…
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‘Western Marxism’ by José Guilherme Merquior
In Western Marxism, José Guilherme Merquior presents a richly layered critique of a complex intellectual movement that sought to reimagine Marxism through a cultural and ideological lens, distinct from the economic determinism of Soviet Marxism. Merquior’s analysis begins by locating the origins of Western Marxism in early 20th-century critiques of orthodox Marxism, a divergence led…
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Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism
In Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism, Russell Jacoby undertakes a rigorous critique of mainstream, “conformist” Marxism, a tradition he views as deeply compromised by its adherence to the “cult of success” and the fetishization of scientific methodology. Jacoby’s work engages with an essential but sidelined trajectory within Marxist thought, a Western alternative that,…
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Leo Kofler’s Philosophy of Praxis: Western Marxism and Socialist Humanism
Leo Kofler’s Philosophy of Praxis, translated by Nathaniel Thomas, offers a monumental account of the life, philosophy, and critical thought of Leo Kofler (1907–1995), a figure dubbed an “unmutilated, living Marxist” by Oskar Negt. This book, rich in its philosophical excavation, explores the deep layers of Kofler’s work as it intersected with Western Marxist currents,…
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‘Understanding Brecht’ by Walter Benjamin
Understanding Brecht by Walter Benjamin is a seminal examination of the complex, dialectical relationship between art and political critique, presented through the lens of one of the most dynamic cultural partnerships of the 20th century—between Walter Benjamin, the philosopher and critic, and Bertolt Brecht, the playwright and poet. This volume brings together Benjamin’s essays on…
Simon Gros 