Reading Marx

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About the Book Reading Marx an engaging and lively introduction Marx's and covers good range debates balanced appreciative judgements tempered with criticism critique. Ray writes with clarity and rigor befitting a distinguished philosopher but readers into the discussion with grace conversation partner. He only theoretical apparatus but also the moral and political commitments animating the Marxist and doing demonstrates Marxian thought continues to find audience in the twenty-first century. Breathing new life into the achievements Karl accessible jargon-free introduction reminder of influence. It offers coverage of today's political problems and value re-reading Marx in the This will welcome by students, scholars activist variety backgrounds.

About the Author B.N. Ray is the Professor Director (Research) in KISS University, Bhubaneswar. He was Professor in Department Politics International Studies Pondicherry Central University.

Preface This is the kind of anthology that indefatatigable Marx scholar Hal Drapers calls a 'bits and pieces collection-passages drawn across Marx's writings, arranged by theme. The dangers of this sort of collection are many and obvious. Marx's thought can be easily misrepresented by quotation out of context; by selection of generalizing, summary or aphoristic material at the expense of the dense and the complex; by imposition, through the choice of themes and ordering of the material, of priorities that were not his own. I have done my utmost to avoid these pitfalls. In particular. I have restricted any temptation to force Marx's thought into the categorical frameworks of later sociology. Readers will not find separate chapters on 'class ‘or 'alienation': such themes are treated as they occur in Marx, as integral parts of his overall analysis of bourgeois society. On the other hand, a 'bits and pieces' collection has advantages other formats often lack. It can give wider currency to passages buried in works that none but specialists would normally read, and thereby shake up simplistic ideas of Marx gleaned from textbooks or a cursory reading of the Communist Manifesto. It permits comparison of Marx's ideas on particular topics across a range of texts. Most importantly of all, it allows the many who do not have the time to plough through Capital, or even a hefty standard anthology like McClellan’s selected writings, the opportunity nonetheless to get a flavor of Marx himself.

I have minimized commentary in order to increase room for Marx's own writings. I do, however, provide a brief introduction, which endeavors to say something about the nature of Marx's literary legacy, and the interpretive problems it poses. This seemed to me essential in a book of this kind.

**Contents and Sample Pages**