The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels

Worldwide political changes since 1990 have driven a re-evaluation of Marxism, a renaissance in Marx-studies, and a renewed interest in his lifelong intellectual partner and personal friend Friedrich Engels. In Terrell Carver's 30th anniversary edition of his pioneering biographical study of the 'junior partner' which still remains the only one to balance Engels's pre-Marx, with-Marx, and post-Marx writings, giving a rounded view of his life and thought Carver adopts a comparative and critical approach, neither taking the 'perfect partnership' as a given, nor presuming that all the intellectual fireworks were Marx's. Engels's famously 'bourgeois' class position and 'champagne socialist' lifestyle emerge as resolutions rather than contradictions they provided opportunities for activist writing and politicking that would not otherwise occur. This study is driven by questions that readers might like to ask about Engels, rather than by the sheer weight of archival materials and stereotypical framing. A newly written introduction provides reflections on how politics since the 1990s has brought Marx, Engels, and Marxisms back to life, and how publication of the Marx-Engels 'collected works' in a definitive edition, and in English translation, have promoted interpretive innovation. Engels himself did his best to establish his own biographical narrative. This book enables readers to assess that dominating view for themselves.

Updates a seminal volume in Engels scholarship for the 200th anniversary of Engels's birth Assesses the Marx-Engels relationship in a new way and evaluates Engels's work contextually Challenges the biographical stereotypes in Engels scholarship and presents Engels as an innovator

Autorentext

Terrell Carver is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol, UK. He is also a co-editor of Palgrave's Marx, Engels, and Marxisms series.

Inhalt

1. Introduction to the 30th Anniversary Edition.- 2. Intellectual Awakening.- 3. Beginning of a Career.- 4. Autodidact in Philosophy.- 5. Manchester Man.- 6. Personal and Political.- 7. Continental Communist.- 8. Emigration.- 9. Conclusion: Politician and Theorist.