File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 209


Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 12:34:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: M-TH: starting Marx



I recommend as intriductoiry background reading two short books. One is
Isaiah Berlin's Karl Marx, an intellectual history that does a nice job of
placing marx in context. The other is Richard Schmitt's Introduction to
MArx and Engels (Westview), which presents the issues and arguments with
exceptional clarity and accessibility in less than 200 pp. Berlin is no
marxist, but he's very fair. Schmitt is a Marxist. --jks 

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Lew wrote:

> In article <l03102807b0b46eef245c-AT-[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
> <dhenwood-AT-panix.com> writes
> 
> >A friend of mine asked where to start reading Marx. I thought the
> >Manifesto, the Econ & Polit Ms of 1844, the German Ideology, the 18th
> >Brumaire, and then Capital. What do other folks think?
> 
> I wouldn't recommend reading Marx himself first. A lot of his works
> require a background understanding of the context and related arguments
> in order to make sense of what he is saying. Without this understanding
> of context the new reader is liable to find the going daunting and give
> up. Try a good introductory work, like Rubel's _Marx Without Myth_, but
> avoid the works by McLellan. Then they could try some of the works
> mentioned above.
> 
> -- 
> Lew
> 
> 
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