eShop USA > Books > Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown
Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown
List Price: $25.95Our Price: $15.10 You Save: $10.85 (42%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780393329438
ISBN: 0393329437
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1280
Publication Date: January 14, 2008
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review:
Winner of the John W. Kluge Prize from the Library of Congress and the 2007 Jerusalem Prize: Leszek Kolakowski's masterpiece, one of the twentieth century's most important books—for the first time in a one-volume paperback.Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: "A prophetic work," according to the Library of Congress, that provides "the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century."
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Marxiana of historical interest in a welcome, if somewhat flawed, new edition
While a new single-volume edition of Kolakowski's Main Currents is most welcome, re-reading it, I cannot but feel it will be of interest only to the most ardent Marxologists (and perhaps the occasional trawler for spirited anti-communist quips).
The work is certainly not a good place to look for an introduction to Marx or Marxist thought. For those purposes, it is far too expansive, and dwells on topics and thinkers that have been rendered largely philosophically irrelevant over the ... Read More
Rating:  - This is NOT scholarship
As the other reviews betray, this is NOT a scholarly work on the history of Marxist theory. It is an ideologically motivated hatchet job, astonishing in its breadth and detail, but propaganda nonetheless. It is not concerned with discovering truth at all, because Kolakowski is already convinced that he possesses it. Possessing truth, he feels justified in lying and distorting things however he pleases.
If you want to actually study Marxism, why would you turn to someone who openly avows ... Read More
Rating:  - A Monumental work
This compilation is a monumental work of research, an ecnyclopedic description of Marxist thought from the beggining to the 1970s. It begins before Marx, going back to ancient Greece and early Christianity in exmaining the dialectic that led to Hegel and thence to Marx. The first book is devoted to this discussion and Marx. The second and third volume examines other thinkers such as Bakunin, Gramsci and Lukacs. This is truly a masterwork, one to wade through at your own pace. Great excerpts highlight ... Read More
Rating: - Read it and weep!
This one-volume edition of Kolakowski's three-volume demolition of Marxism is superb. As a friend once remarked, "More than this, one cannot do."
There are still Marxists and pseudo-Marxists among us, but one doubts that they have the candlepower or integrity to sit down and read through this masterpiece.
Rating: - A High Point of Intellectual History
This is an outstanding description and analysis of the history of Marxism as a philosophic enterprise and doctrine. Kolakowski's goal is a fair and lucid history of Marxism as an intellectual enterprise. This is a highly ambitious undertaking requiring familiarity with a huge range of writers and thinkers, ranging from famous figures like Marx and Hegel to obscure 19th and 20th century ideologues. Kolakowski also appears to be remarkably well versed in the secondary literature on Marxism as well. The breadth ... Read More
Related Categories:
| |
 |
