The Invention of Marxism

How an Idea Changed Everything

Christina Morina

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English

Oxford University Press
06 April 2023

Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Social & cultural history; Politics & government; Political ideologies; Marxism & Communism

How did one man's critique of capitalism guide the course of modern history?

When he died in 1883, Karl Marx left behind an intellectual legacy of formidable proportions and revolutionary potential, yet one that exerted limited actual political, social, or economic influence. The full force of his ideas did not come into play for another generation, and only after they had been appropriated and applied by some of Marxism's earliest proponents. The history of Marxism, in other words, is the story of those who brought Marx's ideas into play, transforming a sweeping but fractious and occasionally abstruse view of historical and social forces into a coherent plan of action. Christina Morina's illuminating book focuses on the first generation of Marxists who turned the work and ideas of one social theorist, one among many, into one of the most powerful transnational political movements in modern history.

The Invention Of Marxism is therefore a group portrait, featuring such figures as Rosa Luxemburg, Max Adler, Jean Jaurès, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, and Vladimir Lenin ED German, French, Russian, Czech ED whose lives became dedicated to interpreting and applying Marxist thought. They were the vehicles by which his ideas were read, debated, and gradually adopted in socialist movements across Europe. Morina's fascinating book therefore reconstructs the beginnings of Marxism through the individual politicization of a group of intellectuals who made it their purpose in life to solve the 'social question', exploring the nexus between their intellectual constructs and social and political reality. The Invention of Marxism shows how what started as a theory of capitalism grew into a fully-fledged political philosophy and platform, one that shaped the century that followed Marx's death. In short, it reveals how an idea first conquered these individuals and then the world.

By: Christina Morina
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 223mm, Width: 143mm, Spine: 35mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780198852087
ISBN 10: 0198852088
Pages: 560
Publication Date: 06 April 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Christina Morina is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Bielefeld. Her research focuses on major themes in nineteenth and twentieth century German and European history, especially World War II, the Holocaust and bystander history, political and memory cultures in Germany since 1945, the history of Marxism, and the history of historiography. In 2017, she published her second monograph Die Erfindung des Marxismus: Wie eine Idee die Welt eroberte. She is also co-author of Zur rechten Zeit: Wider die Ruckkehr das Nationalismus (with Norbert Frei, Franka Maubach und Maik Tandler, 2019) and co-editor of Das 20. Jahrhundert erzahlen: Zeiterfahrung und Zeiterforschung im geteilten Deutschland (with Franka Maubach, 2016) as well as Probing the Limits of Categorization: The Bystander in Holocaust History (with Krijn Thijs, 2018).

Reviews for The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything

Morinas pen-portraits - fine-grained, deftly interlinked - are superb. Forgotten figures, such as Adler and Struve, are coaxed back into the sunlight, famous ones - Lenin, Kautsky, Luxemburg - reimagined * Madoc Cairns, Times Literary Supplement * Morina's pen-portraits - fine-grained, deftly interlinked are superb. * Madoc Cairns, Editor at Plough Quarterly , TLS * The Invention of Marxism provides rich biographical portraits of the first generation of Marx's most ardent followers. * Choice *