Main Currents of Marxism
The Founders • The Golden Age • The Breakdown
(amazon)Leszek Kolakowski (View Bio)
Hardcover: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005.
"Philosopher, historian, theologian, political scientist and literary critic . . . there can be few more eminent figures in the world of ideas." — The Times (London)
"The most commanding, the most decisive, the most properly passionate and yet also . . . the most accessible account of Marxism that we now have. It is a work of surpassing lucidity and power, the sharpest and most sensitive judgment, of a far finer quality than almost all of that with which it deals. It is, in short, a masterpiece." — The Times Higher Education Supplement
"A deeply impressive examination of the entire Marxist tradition, marked by lucid and accurate exposition, sustained and high-level analysis, and a passionately committed point of view." — The New York Review of Books
"With a thoroughness and lucidity unparalleled in any other single tome, this book—first written in Polish in three volumes between 1968 and 1976—addresses the development, practice, and theorists concerned with Marxism, from its origins through the 20th century. . . . Because of the book's daunting size, students may want to consider only parts of the whole, but scholars will be grateful to have this review of what now may seem a commonplace theory, provided in limber and consistent narrative that traces from Plotinus to Eckhart and Hegel, Marx himself, and beyond, to Labriola, the Bolsheviks, the Soviet state, the Frankfurt School, and Mao. For all collections." — Library Journal, 2005
