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No original: "This struck a chord: it had always been the analytical Karl Marx, the political commentator rather than the revolutionary prognosticator, who had most appealed to me. If you asked me which one essay by Marx I would recommend to a student, both in order to appreciate Marx’s talents and grasp the central message, I think it would be The Eighteenth Brumaire, followed closely perhaps by The Class Struggles and The Civil War in France. Marx was a polemical commentator of genius, whatever the shortcomings of his broader theoretical speculations. For this reason, I was largely unmoved by the debates of the 1960s between advocates of the “young” and the “old” Marx, the philosopher of alienation and the theorist of political economy. For me, Marx was always and above all an observer of political events and social reality. (pt) |
