Literature of Revolution: Essays on Marxism

Description

This influential collection explores the pivotal texts and topics in the Marxist tradition. Ranging over questions of social theory, political theory, moral philosophy and literary criticism, it looks at the thought of Marx and Trotsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and Althusser. They include Geras's influential and widely-cited treatment of fetishism in Capital, his comprehensive review of recent debates on Marxism and justice, discussions on political organisation, revolutionary mass action and party pluralism, and a novel analysis of the literary power of Trotsky's writing. In close dialogue with common themes and arguments in the literature of revolutionary Marxism, Geras brings some of his persistent preoccupations to the fore; with the normative foundations and some of the epistemological assumptions of this tradition, with issues of socialist democracy, working class self-education and emancipation.

Norman Geras was born in 1943 in what is now Zimbabwe, and came to England in 1962 to study at Oxford. He started teaching at the University of Manchester where he would become a Professor in the Department of Government. He was an important part of the New Left movement and an editorial board member and contributor at New Left Review. He contributed to Marxist political theory throughout his life, most prominently in his books such as Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend and The Legacy of Rosa Luxembourg. On his retirement he started a blog, normblog, and remained a prolific voice on politics until his death in 2013.

[For The Legacy of Rosa Luxembourg] This is a useful and thoughtful book, in which the power and originality of Rosa Luxemburg's thinking emerges." -- E H Carr * Times Literary Supplement *