Marx was a highly original and polymathic thinker, unhampered by disciplinary boundaries, whose intellectual influence has been enormous. Yet in the wake of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism in Eastern Europe the question arises as to how important his work really is for us now. An important dimension of this volume is to place Marx's writings in their historical context and to separate what he actually said from what others (in particular, Engels) interpreted him as saying. Informed by current debates and new perspectives, the volume provides a comprehensive coverage of all the major areas to which Marx made significant contributions.
List of contributors; Chronology; 1. Reading Marx: life and works Terrell Carver; 2. Critical reception: Marx then and now Paul Thomas; 3. Social and political theory: class, state, revolution Richard W. Miller; 4. Science: realism, criticism, history James Farr; 5. History: critique and irony Terence Ball; 6. Moral philosophy: the critique of capitalism and the problem of ideology Jeffrey Reiman; 7. Political philosophy: Marx and radical democracy Alan Gilbert; 8. Reproduction and the materialist conception of history: a feminist critique Susan Himmelweit; 9. Gender: biology, nature, and capitalism Jeff Hearn; 10. Aesthetics: liberating the senses William Adams; 11. Logic: dialectic and contradiction Lawrence Wilde; 12. History of philosophy: the metaphysics of substance in Marx Scott Meikle; 13. Religion: illusions and liberation Denys Turner; Bibliography; Index.
