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jazzy_daveEric Hobsbawm "How To Change The World : Tales Of Marx and Marxism" (Abacus)
This is a powerful argument for the serious re-engagement with Marx and his ideas. The book title is a bit of a misnomer though, as it certainly doesn't contain any blueprint for 'changing the world'. What it does contain is a collection of essays written between 1956 and 2009, most never previously published before in English, many considerably extended, that provide a history of both Marx and Marxism.
You can't fail to be impressed with Hobsbawm's reach, or the breadth of his learning, and that he argues the case for Marx cogently. The relevance for today is that the globalized capitalist world of the last decades had been anticipated in crucial ways by Marx: the concentration of Western economic and financial power in a few hands, high socio-economic inequalities and systemic (capitalist) crises. He foresaw all this from the end of the 19th century.
So, whilst not an instruction manual to bring in the golden age of socialism, this book concerns itself entirely - with the exception of the last chapter - with the history of ideas, the discipline Hobsbawm commands best. The various essays in this collection, ranging from notes on the prehistory and the contemporary reception of Marxism to musings on Gramsci and Marxist thought in the postwar world, are all concerned with Marxism as one major intellectual influence and current in the history of ideas. his is as it should be, because it allows Hobsbawm the necessary distance as well as giving him the freedom to exercise the kind of subtle and nuanced reflection on the nature and spread of ideas in history and their effect on politics that has made him justly famous.
Overall, a Highly recommended read in my estimation.
This is a powerful argument for the serious re-engagement with Marx and his ideas. The book title is a bit of a misnomer though, as it certainly doesn't contain any blueprint for 'changing the world'. What it does contain is a collection of essays written between 1956 and 2009, most never previously published before in English, many considerably extended, that provide a history of both Marx and Marxism.
You can't fail to be impressed with Hobsbawm's reach, or the breadth of his learning, and that he argues the case for Marx cogently. The relevance for today is that the globalized capitalist world of the last decades had been anticipated in crucial ways by Marx: the concentration of Western economic and financial power in a few hands, high socio-economic inequalities and systemic (capitalist) crises. He foresaw all this from the end of the 19th century.
So, whilst not an instruction manual to bring in the golden age of socialism, this book concerns itself entirely - with the exception of the last chapter - with the history of ideas, the discipline Hobsbawm commands best. The various essays in this collection, ranging from notes on the prehistory and the contemporary reception of Marxism to musings on Gramsci and Marxist thought in the postwar world, are all concerned with Marxism as one major intellectual influence and current in the history of ideas. his is as it should be, because it allows Hobsbawm the necessary distance as well as giving him the freedom to exercise the kind of subtle and nuanced reflection on the nature and spread of ideas in history and their effect on politics that has made him justly famous.
Overall, a Highly recommended read in my estimation.
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Date: 2015-08-04 01:32 pm (UTC)That unreconstructed old Stalinist!
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Date: 2015-08-04 02:57 pm (UTC)LOL........................
Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2015-08-04 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-04 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-04 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-04 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-04 11:46 pm (UTC)