Few would deny that Karl Marx was among the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Yet, as Christoph Henning shows in this important new work, he was also among the most misinterpreted. Focusing on German philosophy from Heidegger to Habermas, and the influence of Rawls and Neo-pragmatism, Henning sketches a historical trajectory of the ways that misreadings in the fields of economics and sociology proliferated into further misreadings across a variety of fields, leading to an accumulation of questionable preconceptions. This historical analysis makes clearly evident where and how...

From the Vanguard to the Margins is dedicated to the work of the late British historian, Dr Mark Pittaway (1971-2010), a prominent scholar of post-war and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Breaking with orthodox readings on Eastern bloc regimes, which remain wedded to the 'totalitarianism' paradigm of the Cold War era, the essays in this volume shed light on the contradictory historical and social trajectory of 'real socialism' in the region.
Mainstream historiography has presented Stalinist parties as 'omnipotent', effectively stripping workers and society in general...

During the twentieth century the problem of post-revolutionary bureaucracy emerged as the most pressing theoretical and political concern confronting Marxism. No one contributed more to the discussion of this question than Leon Trotsky. In Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy, Thomas M. Twiss traces the development of Trotsky's thinking on this issue from the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution through the Moscow Trials of the 1930s. Throughout, he examines how Trotsky's perception of events influenced his theoretical understanding of the problem, and how Trotsky's...

In this far-reaching and insightful work, Vasant Kaiwar analyzes the political, economic, and ideological cross-currents that have shaped and informed postcolonial studies. Kaiwar mobilizes Marxism to demonstrate that subaltern studies is marred by orientalism, and that far richer understandings of 'Europe' not to mention 'colonialism', 'modernity' and 'difference' are possible without a postcolonialism captive to phenomenological-existentialism and post-structuralism.

Plural Temporality traces out a dynamic historical relationship between the texts of Spinoza and Althusser. It attempts to understand Spinoza's thought through Althusser's insights, and in the process to better interrogate Althusser's own philosophy. From the fragmentary intuitions Althusser produced about Spinoza throughout his life, Morfino builds a new and comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's philosophy. In the later sections of the book, this interpretation is put to work to help to clarify some of the more problematic aspects of the late Althusser's philosophy, thereby...

Revolutionary Marxism in Spain, 1930-1937 examines the impact of Trotsky's politics upon those Spanish communists who dissented from the 'general line' of Moscow in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. Exploring the ideas of leading POUM figures, and their complex relationship with Trotsky, Sennett finds that the Russian dissident held more sway in the party than many of the POUM's historians admit. Deeply engaged with the broader scholarly debates around the role of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War and Revolution, especially in regards to the Popular Front, Sennett draws heavily upon...

This book, the first English-language history of the French revolutionary group Socialism ou Barbarie, focuses on the period of 1949 to 1957 when the influence of the group began to wane. Hastings-King explains why Socialisme ou Barbarie's anti-Leninist position on organization led it to privilege first person narratives in order to understand worker experience and its revolutionary possibilities.
Looking for the Proletariat draws on these narratives--the only first-person accounts of the working-class experience in French industry during the 1950s--to explore the disintegration of...

Using Gramsci's concept of 'hegemony' Alan Shandro offers an original interpretation of Lenin's political practice and theory.
Through a careful textual analysis of the writings of Lenin and his contemporaries, Shandro traces the ways in which Lenin's political practice and theory led him to the 'philosophical fact' of hegemony. This original and groundbreaking investigation demolishes many of caricatures of Lenin's role as political actor and thinker, and illuminates the underlying parameters of hegemony within the class struggle.

What is the relationship between music and time? How does musical rhythm express our social experience of time? In Groove: An Aesthetic of Measured Time, Mark Abel explains the rise to prominence in Western music of a new way of organizing rhythm--groove. He provides a historical account of its emergence around the turn of the twentieth century, and analyses the musical components that make it work.
Drawing on materialist interpretations of art and culture, Mark Abel engages with aesthetic arguments, challenging in particular Adorno's critique of popular music. He concludes that...

Drawing on an impressive array of original archival research and a series of critiques of recent accounts of economic development in pre-modern England, The Origin of Capitalism in England 1400-1600 offers a rich and multi-layered account of the historical rupture in English feudal society that led to the first sustained transition to agrarian capitalism and the industrial revolution.
Weaving together political, social, and economic themes, Spencer Dimmock makes the case that capitalism should be viewed as a form of society rather than narrowly as an economic system. This...