Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies

by Kevin B. Anderson

Overview

Since its initial publication, Marx at the Margins has succeeded in establishing that Marx as a thinker was deeply concerned with non-Western and precapitalist societies in their own right, rather than as a mere adjunct to his theorization of modern Western capitalist societies. Kevin Anderson’s book, winner of the Marxist Sociology Book Award and now available in five languages in six editions, uncovers a variety of extensive but neglected texts by the well-known political economist which cast what we thought we knew about his work in a startlingly different light. Analyzing a variety of Marx’s writings, including journalistic work written for the New York Tribune, Anderson presents us with a Marx quite at odds with our conventional interpretations. Rather than providing us with an account of Marx as an exclusively class-based thinker, Anderson here offers a portrait of Marx for the twenty-first century: a global theorist whose social critique was sensitive to the varieties of human social and historical development, including not just class, but nationalism, race, and gender, as well. Through highly-informed readings on work ranging from Marx’s unpublished 1879–82 notebooks to his passionate writings about the antislavery cause in the United States, this volume delivers a groundbreaking and canon-changing vision of Karl Marx that has provoked lively debate in Marxist scholarship and beyond. This edition contains a new preface by the author that discusses the book’s reception, as well as the influence of the Russian-American Marxist-Humanist philosopher, Raya Dunayevskaya, on his thinking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226345673
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	02/12/2016
Edition description:	Enlarged
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Kevin B. Anderson is professor of sociology, political science, and feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is coauthor, with Janet Afary, of Foucault and the Iranian Revolution.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

List of Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1

1 Colonial Encounters in the 1850s: The European Impact on India, Indonesia, and China 9

2 Russia and Poland: The Relationship of National Emancipation to Revolution 42

3 Race, Class, and Slavery: The Civil War as a Second American Revolution 79

4 Ireland: Nationalism, Class, and the Labor Movement 115

5 From the Grundrisse to Capital: Multilinear Themes 154

6 Late Writings on Non-Western and Precapitalist Societies 196

Conclusion 237

Appendix: The Vicissitudes of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe from the 1920s to Today 247

Notes 253

References 285

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

Marx at the Margins is essential reading for anyone seeking to explore the sophistication and complexity of Marx and Engels’s writings on race, nationalism, ethnicity, and the historical development of non-Western societies.

International Socialist Review

It is a commonplace that Marx’s materialist conception of history is a simplistic grand narrative, positing a reductive account of historical change and expressing a Eurocentric view of the world. . . . Anderson challenges this view. Paying careful attention to what Marx actually wrote about politics at the peripheries—the margins—of Europe, . . . Anderson demonstrates the richness of Marx’s understanding and the extent to which his mature thinking incorporated a nuanced appreciation of the importance of events and processes beyond the heart of Europe. [Marx at the Margins is] a genuinely innovative book.

Perspectives on Politics

Anderson’s survey of a large swathe of Marx’s writings illustrates the volution of Marx’s thinking and the breadth of vision. This is major work which will influence debate and thinking for a long time to come.

Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

A valuable contribution to a rather neglected area of study in Marx’s corpus. . . . In offering an empirically grounded picture of Marx as a ‘global thinker,’ alert to the political import of nationalism, race, and ethnicity, this book forcefully challenges deterministic and Eurocentric representations of Marx and Marxist class analysis.

Political Studies Review

Anderson’s exceptional book makes the case for Marxism’s relevance with patience, clarity, and rigor, as well as decisiveness. He leaves us convinced that a politics determined to ally class with race, nationality, and ethnicity in the struggle against imperialism would do well to look again at the work of the founder of this immensely rich intellectual and political tradition. Read this; and then read Capital.

Journal of Postcolonial Writing

Marx at the Margins is essential reading for anyone seeking to explore the sophistication and complexity of Marx and Engels’s writings on race, nationalism, ethnicity, and the historical development of non-Western societies.”

International Socialist Review - Nagesh Rao

Anderson may just have provided the burgeoning Marx industry with another major focus for its research and debates. Marx at the Margins reveals a dimension of Marx that is very little known and even less understood. Anderson makes an overwhelming case for the importance of Marx’s views on non-Western societies, ethnicity, nationalism, and race to our interpretations of his thinking over a wide range of topics. This is an incredibly innovative, interesting, and terribly important book that will greatly benefit any of its readers.

Bertell Ollman

"Marxist scholar Kevin Anderson has undertaken an exhaustive reading of some of Marx's lesser-known writings. He explores how Marx developed and changed his ideas about societies that, in the 19th century, were still peripheral to capitalism. . . . This whole book is fascinating."

Socialist Review - Colin Barker

Anderson’s survey of a large swathe of Marx’s writings illustrates the volution of Marx’s thinking and the breadth of vision. This is major work which will influence debate and thinking for a long time to come.”

Marx & Philosophy Review of Books - Barry Healy

Marx at the Margins is a book of tremendous scope, filled with important scholarly contributions, including Anderson’s highly original reading of Marx’s theory of history. In this truly ground-breaking work, Kevin Anderson analyzes Marx’s journalism and various unpublished writings on European colonialism and the developing countries for the first time, breaking the long-held stereotype that Marx was an incorrigible class and economic reductionist. Well-written in clear and accessible prose, Marx at the Margins proves that Marx is the sophisticated and original theorist of history some might not have ever expected him to be.

Douglas Kellner

Marxist scholar Kevin Anderson has undertaken an exhaustive reading of some of Marx's lesser-known writings. He explores how Marx developed and changed his ideas about societies that, in the 19th century, were still peripheral to capitalism. . . . This whole book is fascinating.

— Colin Barker

Socialist Review

Anderson’s survey of a large swathe of Marx’s writings illustrates the volution of Marx’s thinking and the breadth of vision. This is major work which will influence debate and thinking for a long time to come.”

— Barry Healy

Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

"Anderson may just have provided the burgeoning Marx industry with another major focus for its research and debates. Marx at the Margins reveals a dimension of Marx that is very little known and even less understood. This is an incredibly innovative, interesting, and terribly important book-one that will greatly benefit anyone interested in ideas."-Bertell Ollman, New York University

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