History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, Georg Lukács

This is the first time one of the most important of Lukács’ early theoretical writings, published in Germany in 1923, has been made available in English. The book consists of a series of essays treating, among other topics, the definition of orthodox Marxism, the question of legality and illegality, Rosa Luxemburg as a Marxist, the changing function of Historic Marxism, class consciousness, and the substantiation and consciousness of the Proletariat.

Writing in 1968, on the occasion of the appearance of his collected works, Lukács evaluated the influence of this book as follows:

“For the historical effect of History and Class Consciousness and also for the actuality of the present time one problem is of decisive importance: alienation, which is here treated for the first time since Marx as the central question of a revolutionary critique of capitalism, and whose historical as well as methodological origins are deeply rooted in Hegelian dialectic. It goes without saying that the problem was omnipresent. A few years after History and Class Consciousness was published, it was moved into the focus of philosophical discussion by Heidegger in his Being and Time, a place which it maintains to this day largely as a result of the position occupied by Sartre and his followers. The philologic question raised by L. Goldmann, who considered Heidegger’s work partly as a polemic reply to my (admittedly unnamed) work, need not be discussed here. It suffices today to say that the problem was in the air, particularly if we analyze its background in detail in order to clarify its effect, the mixture of Marxist and Existentialist thought processes, which prevailed especially in France immediately after the Second World War. In this connection priorities, influences, and so on are not particularly significant. What is important is that the alienation of man was recognized and appreciated as the central problem of the time in which we live, by bourgeois as well as proletarian, by politically rightist and leftist thinkers. Thus, History and Class Consciousness exerted a profound effect in the circles of the youthful intelligentsia.”

George Lichtheim, also in 1968, writes that “…The originality of the early Lukács lay in the assertion that the totality of history could be apprehended by adopting a particular ‘class standpoint’: that of the proletariat. Class consciousness—not indeed the empirical consciousness of the actual proletariat, which was hopelessly entangled with the surface aspects of objective reality, but an ideal-typical consciousness proper to a class which radically negates the existing order of reality: that was the formula which had made it possible for the Lukács of 1923 to unify theory and practice.”

Tags: Class consciousness, history, Lukács, Marxism
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Interpretations Of Fascism, A. James Gregor

Interpretations Of Fascism provides a review of the efforts that have been made up to now to interpret and explain the phenomena of fascism. It addresses itself specifically to those efforts undertaken to provide a social science explanation of Mussolini’s Fascism. Dealing with the special application of social science methods to a specific problem, Interpretations Of Fascism provides a special perspective from which to examine fascism in a comparative context. The seminal work is useful for students of political theory, comparative politics, democracy and dictatorship, economic and political change, and modern European history. The documentation is profuse, and enhanced with an excellent bibliographic review that can serve scholars and interested general readers alike. — Midwest Book Review

Tags: A. James Gregor, Fascism
Category Reading Essentials |

The Class Struggle, Michael Parenti

Praise for The Assassination of Julius Caesar:

“Parenti . . . re-creates the struggle of the late Republic with scintillating storytelling and deeply examined historical insight.”—Publishers Weekly

One of America’s most astute and engaging political analysts, Michael Parenti shows us that culture is a changing process and the product of a dynamic interplay between a wide range of social and political interests. It is not enough to study the prevailing political realm; we also must grasp developments throughout the entire civil society. In short, to understand a society we need to understand the problem of culture as well as that of power.

Drawing from cultures around the world, Parenti shows that beliefs and practices are readily subjected to political manipulation, and that many parts of culture are being commodified, separated from their group or communal origins, and packaged and sold to those who can pay for them. Folk culture is giving way to a corporate market culture. Art, science, medicine, and psychiatry can be used as instruments of cultural control, and even marriage, the “foundation of society,” has been misused by heterosexuals across the centuries.

Using vivid examples and riveting arguments throughout, The Culture Struggle ranges from the everyday to the esoteric. Richly informed, penned with eloquence and irony, The Culture Struggle presents a collection of snapshots of our time that help us understand the world we live in.

Michael Parenti is a critically acclaimed author and an extraordinary public speaker. He received his PhD in political science from Yale University and has taught at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He is the author of 18 books, including Superpariotism, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, and Inventing Reality.

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