From: glevy-AT-acnet.pratt.edu
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 23:23:16 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: OTTO RUHLE'S BIO OF MARX


=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rn_Andersen?= wrote:

> Just this:
> I haven't read Ruhles book - from your short presentation it might be > worth reading - but I will strongly recommend Callinicos' book as a good > and very *political* introduction to Marx's ideas.

I can't agree with the recommendation of Callinicos's book. In general, I 
find it a very weak book lacking in original scholarship. My biggest 
objection, though, is the interjection of the author's *own* perspectives,
and those of the SWP/UK, (e.g. on "really existing socialism") in a book 
that is supposed to be a biography of Marx. 

A better biography, IMHO, is David McLellan _Karl Marx: His Life and 
Thought_ (Harper & Row, 1973). Also good, but relatively boring, is 
Maximilien Rubel and Margaret Manale _Marx Without Myth_ (Harper & Row, 
1975).

Jerry


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