Review by Choice Review
This volume is one in a series of Cambridge University Press collections of specially commissioned essays devoted to major philosophers. The book opens with an essay by editor Carver on Marx's life and works, followed with an essay by Paul Thomas on the historically evolving reception of Marx's works and the political significance of shifts in this evolution. The rest of the essays focus on particular aspects of Marx's work: the importance of Marx's work for social and political theory, Marx's philosophy of science, Marx's ethics and political philosophy, Marxism and feminism, Marx's aesthetics and metaphysics, Marx's dialectics, and Marx's view of religion. The contributors are scholars who have previously done significant work on Marx, and in general the quality of the essays is quite high. Although the focus of the contributors is on Marx as a philosopher, and they write from philosophically and politically diverse positions, the essays share, even when critical of Marx, an attempt to rescue Marxism from an identification with Soviet Communism. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate level.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
This volume is among the first in a new series intended to serve as ``companions'' to the works of major philosophers. Its 13 chapters include some of the best Anglo-American authors on Karl Marx. Yet those who feel that such a book must reflect the major interests of its subject will be astonished by the absence of a chapter devoted to economics and the presence of those concerning feminism, ``gender theory,'' and religion. The editor's stated appreciation of the separation of the ``Marxian from the Marxist'' could have better focused his choice of topics. Nevertheless, the unimpeachable quality of individual chapters demonstrates the enduring value of Marx's text. Richard Miller's chapter on social and political theory carefully discusses Marx's use of such terms as ``exploitation,'' ``the state,'' and ``ideology''; Scott Meikle exposes the ``confusion'' of Marx's thought with ``progressive Benthamite egalitarianism''; Laurence Wilde addresses the neglected question of Marx's dialectical reasoning. The bibliography is especially welcome. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-Erie (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Library Journal Review
