Karl Marx

For nearly a century, Karl Marx has been imprisoned by "isms", misinterpreted through the writings of Engels and the totalitarian aspirations of Lenin and Stalin. Challenging this antiquated portrait, Jonathan Sperber demonstrates that Marx had more in common with Robespierre than with twentieth-century Communists. Using the recently opened complete Marx and Engels database, Sp...

For nearly a century, Karl Marx has been imprisoned by "isms", misinterpreted through the writings of Engels and the totalitarian aspirations of Lenin and Stalin. Challenging this antiquated portrait, Jonathan Sperber demonstrates that Marx had more in common with Robespierre than with twentieth-century Communists. Using the recently opened complete Marx and Engels database, Sperber juxtaposes the private man against the public agitator who helped foment the 1848-49 Revolution and whose incendiary books inflamed the dissident world of Europe. Sperber not only animates Marx's personal life but also presents Marx's story against a backdrop of contemporaries. Like Peter Gay's Freud and Ian Kershaw's Hitler, Karl Marx becomes the defining portrait of a towering historical figure.

美国密苏里大学欧洲史教授，19世纪欧洲社会及政治史专家，著有多本关于十九世纪欧洲历史的作品，如 《1850年至1914年的欧洲：进步、参与及焦虑》，《德意志西南的产权与公民社会，1820-1914》，《革命的欧洲，1780-1850》，《欧洲大革命，1848-1851》等。